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ESSAYS 



IN 



AMERICAN HISTORY 



BY 



HENRY FERGUSON, M. A. 

Northam Professor of History and Political Science in 
Trintty College, Hartford. 



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New York 

JAMES POTT AND COMPANY 

114 Fifth Avenue. 



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Copyright, 1894, 

BY 

JAMES POTT & CO. 



CONTENTS= 



I. 

THE QUAKERS IN NEW ENGLAND 9 

II. 
THE WITCHES 61 

III. 
SIR EDMUND ANDROS til 

IV. 
THE LOYALISTS 161 



PREFACE. 



These essays are presented to the public in 
the belief that though what they contain be 
old, it is worth telling again, and in the hope 
that by viewing the early history of the 
country from a somewhat different stand- 
point from that commonly taken, light may 
be thrown upon places which have been 
sometimes left in shadow. 

The time has been when it was considered 
a duty to praise every action of the reso- 
lute men who were the early settlers of 
New England. In the glow of an exultant 
patriotism which was unwilling to see any- 
thing but beauty in the annals of their coun- 
try, and in a spirit of reverence which made 
them shrink from observing their fathers' 
shortcomings, the early historians of the 
United States dwelt lovingly on the bright 
side of the colonial life, and passed over its 

shadows with filial reticence. It is evident 

5 



6 PBEFACE. 

that no true conception of any period is pos- 
sible when so studied, and it is a matter for 
congratulation that at the present day the 
subject can be treated with greater impar- 
tiality, and that it is no longer necessary for 
American writers to make up for the political 
and literary insignificance of their country 
hj boasting either of the vastness of their 
continent or of the Spartan virtue of their 
forefathers. 

In the same manner, in earlier days, when 
the recollection of the struggle for inde- 
pendence was still vivid, patriotic Americans 
were unable to recognize anything but ar- 
bitrary tyranny in the attempts made from 
time to time by the English government to 
give unity and organization to the group of 
discordant and feeble settlements, or to see 
anything but what was base and servile in 
the sentiments that inspired those whom they 
nicknamed Tories. Now, under the influ- 
ence of calmer consideration, men are begin- 
ning to admit that something may be said 
for men like Andros, who strove against the 
separatist spirit which seemed to New Eng- 
land to be the very essence of liberty, and 
even for those unfortunates who valued the 
connection with Great Britain more than 
they did the privileges of self-government, 



PBEFACE. 7 

and who were compelled in grief and sorrow, 
from their devotion to their principles, to 
leave forever the homes they loved. The war 
of secession has taught Americans to under- 
stand the term, and appreciate the sentiment, 
of loyalty. It is no longer an unmeaning 
word, fit only to be ridiculed in scurrilous 
doggerel by patriot rhymsters, as was the case 
a hundred years ago, but appeals to an an- 
swering chord in the heart of every man who 
remembers the quick heart-beats and the 
grand enthusiasm of those four years of 
struggle, the true heroic age of American 
history. 

The paper upon TJie Quakers in Neiu Eng- 
land is an enlargement and revision of an 
article printed in the American Church Re- 
view, in April 1889, and that upon Sir Ed- 
mund Anclros has been printed by the His- 
torical Society of Westchester County, N. Y., 
before whom it was read in October 1892, 
but it has been revised and enlarged. In- 
stead of burdening the pages with notes and 
references, they have been placed together 
after each essay, so that they may be readily 
used by those who desire to do so, and yet may 
not affront the eyes of those who do not 
desire them. 

It is impossible to give credit for every 



8 PREFACE, 

statement to every historian who may have 
made it ; it has been the desire of the author 
to indicate his principal sources of informa- 
tion, and he has not knowingly omitted any 
work upon which he has relied for the his- 
torical facts presented. 

Trinity College, Hartford, 
October 1894. 



I. 

THE QUAKERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 

In the year 1656, in the midst of the period 
of the Commonwealth, the good people 
of Massachusetts, who were enjoying a brief 
season of rest after their troubles with the 
Baptists and the Antinomians, heard to their 
horror that they were likely to be visited by 
certain fanatics of whom they had heard 
from their brethren in England. These were 
known to them by the invidious name of 
Quakers, and were confounded with Adam- 
ites, Muggletonians, and Ranters, strangely 
named sects which the confusion of the 
times had brought forth. ^ 

This remarkable body of men, whose history 

has presented such strange contrasts of wild 

enthusiasm and imperturbable stolidity, of 

fanaticism and quietism, of contempt for the 

world and its rewards on the one side, and of 

sordid love of peace and money-getting upon 

9 



10 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

the other, had recently come into being as 
one of the natural results of the unsettling 
of religious faiths and practices which had 
accompanied the political revolution in Eng- 
land. The Quaker movement was a revolt 
at once from the enforced conformity of the 
Laudian establishment and from the intoler- 
able spiritual oppression of the Calvinistic 
divines, whose little fingers, when they came 
into power, had been thicker than the loins 
of their predecessors. 

The great Anglican prelates of the reign of 
Charles I. were unfortunate in the circum- 
stances amidst which their lives were spent. 
They vv^ere liberal and tolerant in theology, 
and they were pilloried as bigots ; they 
held an idea of what the Church of England 
should be, that was utopian in its compre- 
hensiveness, and they are described by every 
New England writer of school histories or 
children's story-books as narrow minded ene- 
mies of freedom of thought. The system 
proposed by Andrewes and Montague was 
essentially that of Sir Thomas More : liber- 
ality in matters of belief, with uniformity in 
practice and in ritual. The Puritan divines, 
on the other hand, were despotic in matters of 
faith and doctrine to a degree rarely equalled 
in the history of the human mind, while 



THE QUAKERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 11 

they insisted upon their right of refusing the 
system of worship which was estabhshed by 
law in the Church of England, and of choos- 
ing for themselves religious ordinances to 
suit their own tastes and fancies. They did 
not plead for liberty on the ground that the 
principle of compulsion in religious matters 
was wrong and illegitimate, but because the 
services of the Church of England were, in 
their opinion, unscriptural if not idolatrous. 
The one party was tolerant in doctrine, and 
despotic, tyrannical at times, in matters of 
ritual ; the other claimed to be indifferent as 
to ritual, but was despotic in opinions. The 
church, by attempting to regulate public 
worship, was led in some instances to appear 
to be persecuting men for doctrinal differ- 
ences ; the Puritans, from their zeal for or- 
thodoxy in doctrine, became, when the power 
was placed in their hands, the strictest pos- 
sible disciplinarians. The tendency of the 
one party was to subject the church to the 
state, and thus make it an instrument of 
political authority ; the other tended to the 
subjection of the state to the church, making 
the civil authority little more than the body 
by which the edicts of the ministers should 
be registered and their decrees should be 
enforced. 



12 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

With the early history of Quakerism we 
have Httle to do. Its founder, George Fox, 
was the son of a weaver at Fenny Drayton 
(or Drayton in the Clay) in Leicestershire. 
He had been piously brought up by his par- 
ents, who were members of the Church of 
England, and passed a boyhood and youth of 
singular purity and innocence. When he 
was growing up to manhood he passed 
through a period of deep religious depression, 
and found no help from any of his friends or 
from the ministers of the parish churches in his 
neighborhood (who at this time were mainly 
Presbyterians) or from the newer lights of 
the rising separatist bodies. One counselled 
him to have blood let, another to use tobacco 
and sing psalms ; and the poor distracted boy, 
whose soul was heavy with a sense of the 
wrath of God, found no comfort from any of 
them. A careful study of the Bible made 
him quick to see the weak points in the sys- 
tems that surrounded him, and at last he 
found the comfort he sought in the sense of 
an immediate communion with God and an 
indwelling of the Spirit of Christ within the 
soul. For a time he led a solitary life, leav- 
ing home and friends and wandering over 
the country on foot, clothed in garments of 
leather, sleeping wherever he could find a 



THE QUAKERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 13 

lodging, and spending whole days sometimes 
in the hollows of great trees. Soon it was 
''borne in upon him" that the presence of 
the Spirit and the inner light was as good a 
qualification for the office of preacher as that 
of being a graduate of Oxford or Cambridge, 
and he began his public ministry about the 
year 1646.2 

With the externals of Quakerism we are 
all familiar : the morbid conscientiousness 
that forbade the use of the common forms of 
courtesy, the simple dress, the refusal to sub- 
mit to the authority of magistrates or of 
priests in matters concerning religion, and 
the unwillingness to pay them the usual com- 
pliments due to their position. The true in- 
ner nature of Quakerism, which gave it its 
strength, lay not merely in its abhorrence 
of forms and formulas, its vigorous protest 
against any compulsion in matters either of 
religious thought or religious observance, 
but essentially in its consciousness of the 
need of the Divine presence and its belief in 
the fulfilment of the Saviour's promise to 
send his Spirit into the world. 

It was a faith for martyrs and enthusiasts, 
a faith which in its simple earnestness had 
wonderful power of conviction, but which 
was especially liable to counterfeits and pre- 



14 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY, 

tenders, who could delude themselves or 
others into a belief in their inspiration, and 
who substituted a wild extravagance for the 
enthusiasm of the first believers. One can- 
not help regretting that Fox's fate placed 
him in so uncongenial a century as the seven- 
teenth and in so matter-of-fact a country as 
England. Had he been born in Italy in the 
middle ages, his name might rank with that 
of Francis of Assisi. But it was impossible 
to expect comprehensiveness or liberality 
from the Puritans of the day, all the less be- 
cause of the abuses and fanatical actions by 
which Quakerism was parodied and made 
ridiculous. It was essentially an esoteric 
religion, and had, in consequence, the great 
disadvantage of being able to furnish no 
tests by which the true could be distinguished 
from the false, those inspired with a genuine 
religious enthusiasm from the fanatics and 
pretenders. 

Their revolt from all established customs 
and usages, their disrespect for authority, 
and the boldness with which they rebuked 
and disputed with the preacher in the pulpit 
of the '^ steeple house " or with the justice 
on the bench, brought them at once into dif- 
ficulties with the rulers in church and state, 
who showed themselves no more tolerant of 



THE QUAKERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 15 

dissent from their own favorite way of think- 
ing and acting than were the most despotic of 
all the Anglican prelates. They were impris- 
oned, fined, beaten, and exiled ; in 1656 Fox 
computed that there were seldom less than 
a thousand Quakers in prison at once. They 
seemed inspired with a spirit of opposition ; 
wherever they were not wanted, there were 
they sure to go. They visited Scotland and 
Ireland, the West India islands and the 
American colonies ; one woman testified be- 
fore the Grand Turk at Adrianople, two others 
were imprisoned by the Inquisition at Malta ; 
one brother visited Jerusalem and bore his 
testimony against the superstition of the 
monks, others made their way to Eome, Aus- 
tria, and Hungary, and a number of them 
preached their doctrines in Holland and Ger- 
many.^ Such enthusiasm, even in those in 
whom it was genuine, was very nearly akin 
to insanity ; and in many instances the divid- 
ing line was crossed, and the votaries allowed 
themselves to commit grotesque and indecent 
actions, or to speak most shocking blasphe- 
mies and to receive an idolatrous veneration 
from the silly women who listened to their 
ravings. The disturbances of the times pro- 
duced many other bands of fanatics who were 
frequently confounded with the Quakers, and 



1 6 ESS A YS IN AMERICAN HIS TOR Y. 

gave to them the odium of their misdeeds. 
The Eanters, the Adamites, the Muggleto- 
nians, and the Fifth Monarchy Men were all 
akin to the Quakers in being opposed to the 
order established by law, and in professing 
to be guided by an inner light ; they differed 
from them, however, in making their relig- 
ious fanaticism very often a cloak for secret 
vice or for wild plots against the govern- 
ment. The temporary overthrow of the com- 
prehensive church establishment of the judi- 
cious statesmen and reformers of Elizabeth's 
reign had opened the gates to a flood of irre- 
ligion and fanaticism. The ecclesiastical 
despotism established by the Westminster 
Assembly was more repugnant to Englishmen 
than the old church which had been sup- 
pressed, and the condition of England in 
religious matters during the Commonwealth 
forms one of the best apologies for the severe 
reactionary measures that were adopted when 
the king and the bishops were restored in 1660. 
It was in the middle of this period that the 
episode of the Quaker troubles in New Eng- 
land occurred, an episode which has been 
given an unpleasant prominence in the 
colonial history of New England, partly from 
the bitterness of the feelings which were 
aroused on both sides, but especially from 



THE QUAKEBS IN NEW ENGLAND. 17 

the bearing that it had upon the question of 
the people of Massachusetts for the powers 
and responsibihties of self-government. The 
story is a sad one of misdirected earnestness 
and zeal on the one side, of mistaken consis- 
tency and fidelity to principle, however false, 
upon the other. We condemn while we 
admire ; we wonder at the steadiness and 
constancy of both judged and judges, while 
we regret the tragic results that stained the 
new commonwealth with innocent blood. 
It is not surprising, however, that such a 
conflict took place, for as a recent writer of 
great learning and ability has well said of 
the relations of the Quakers and their 
opponents, — *Hhe issue presented seemed to 
have a resemblance to the mechanical prob- 
lem of what will be the effect if an irresis- 
tible body strikes an immovable body."* 

The colonial governments which had been 
established in New England in the first 
half of the seventeenth century were not, 
as is frequently assumed, homogeneous and 
similar, but differed from each other in 
their political status and to some extent in 
their political institutions, and very greatly 
in the spirit which governed and directed 
them. 

Massachusetts had a charter obtained from 
2 



18 JESSATS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

the Crown for a trading company, and trans- 
ferred to the colony by a daring usurpation ; 
Ehode Island had a charter granted by the 
Long Parliament ; Plymouth had obtained 
its territory by purchase from the old Ply- 
mouth Company, but its political existence 
was winked at rather than recognized ; Con- 
necticut and New Haven were, to all intents 
and purposes, independent republics, save for 
a somewhat doubtful acknowledgment of 
the supremacy of the king and of the Com- 
monwealth that was his successor. All but 
Ehode Island were joined together in a fede- 
ral league for mutual defence against exter- 
nal and internal enemies. 

The circumstances of the settlement of the 
various colonies had been such as to render 
the colonists extremely tenacious of their own 
privileges, and extremely jealous of any inter- 
ference from the other side of the ocean. 
The people of Massachusetts, especially, lived 
in constant dread of their much-prized charter 
being taken away from them by the king, 
from whom it had been obtained, or by the 
parliament, which considered that it was its 
province to meddle with and to regulate all 
things in heaven and on earth. 

It is quite remarkable that the attitude of 
the colonies to the home government, during 



THE QUAKERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 19 

the period of the Commonwealth, no less than 
in the years which preceded it, was one of 
jealous suspicion. The charter colonies 
feared that their privileges would be inter- 
fered with, the self-organized colonies were 
in dread of a quo warranto or a scire facias^ 
which would disclose the irregularity of their 
organizations or the defectiveness of their 
titles. 

The godly and judicious Winthrop, the 
statesmanlike founder and governor of Mas- 
sachusetts, had died, sorrowing on his death- 
bed for the harshness in religious matters 
into which he had been forced ; and in his 
place was the severe and fanatical Endicott, 
a man of gloomy intensity of nature, a stern 
logician, a man who neither asked nor 
granted mercy. The clergy were fanatically 
devoted to their religious and political pe- 
culiarities, and were inferior in wisdom and 
judgment to the great leader who had come 
out from England with the early settlers 
at the beginning of the colony. Cotton was 
dead, and was succeeded in his office of teacher 
by John Norton, who differed from his prede- 
cessor by the lack of the principal character- 
istics which had so greatly distinguished 
him : ^^ Profound judgment, eminent gravity, 
Christian candor, and sweet temper of spirit, 



20 ESSAYS IN AMEBIC AN HISTORY. 

whereby he could very placidly bear those 
who differed from him in other apprehen- 
sions." ^ Hooker had long since removed to 
Connecticut, where he had been largely 
instrumental in founding a more genial com- 
monwealth upon a broader and more liberal 
basis. Wilson, the first pastor of the church 
at Boston, was indeed still living, but was a 
worthy associate of Endicott and Norton, 
and distinguished then, as he had always 
been, rather by zeal than by either discretion 
or Christian charity. 

By a process of successful exclusions and 
banishments the community had been ren- 
dered tolerably homogeneous, or at least sub- 
missive to the theocratical system which had 
been established. Those who had been de- 
feated in the struggle for existence had gone 
elsewhere to found new commonwealths, all 
with a greater amount of religious liberty 
than that of Massachusetts. 

The first we hear of the Quakers in New 
England is in an order of the General Court 
appointing May 14, 1656, as a public day of 
humiliation, ^' to seek the face of God in be- 
half of our native country, in reference to the 
abounding of errors, especially those of the 
Ranters and Quakers." ^ 

About two months later a ship arrived 



THE QUAKERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 21 

from Barbadoes, bringing as passengers 
two Quaker women, Mary Fisher and Ann 
Austin. As soon as they arrived in the har- 
bor, the Governor, the Deputy Grovernor, and 
four assistants met and ordered that the cap- 
tain of the ship should be compelled to carry 
them back to Barbadoes ; that in the mean 
time they should be kept in jail, and the books 
which they had brought with them should be 
burnt. During imprisonment they were sub- 
jected to great indignities and insults at the 
hands of the brutal jailer, apparently with- 
out warrant, being stripped naked and their 
bodies examined for witch-marks, with attend- 
ing circumstances of great indecency. They 
were half-starved in prison, and then after a 
detention of about a month they were sent 
away. No sooner had they gone when an- 
other vessel arrived from England, bringing 
eight more, four men and four women, be- 
sides one man from Long Island, who had 
been converted during the voyage. Officers 
were sent on board the vessel, and the Qua- 
kers were taken at once to the jail, where they 
were kept eleven weeks, and then sent back 
to England, despite the protests of the ship- 
master. ^ During their detention they were 
examined before the magistrates, and they 
increased the abhorrence in which they were 



22 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN EISTOBT. 

held by their rude and contemptuous an- 
swers, which gave the authorities a sufficient 
excuse for keeping them in prison. Their 
books were burned ; and though some pains 
seems to have been taken to convince them of 
their errors by argument, it was in vain. 
One of the women, Mary Prince by name, 
made herself particularly obnoxious by the 
eloquence of her abuse. She reviled the 
governor from the window of the prison, de- 
nouncing the judgment of God upon him, 
wrote violent letters to him and to the mag- 
istrates, and when the ministers attempted 
to argue with her, she drove them from her 
as '^hirelings, deceivers of the people, priests 
of Baal, the seed of the serpent, the brood of 
Ishmael, etc." 

While this second batch of Quakers was in 
prison, the Federal Commissioners were in 
session, and resolved to propose to the several 
General Courts that all Quakers, Eanters, 
and other notorious heretics should be pro- 
hibited coming into the United Colonies, 
and if any should hereafter come or arise, 
that they should be forthwith secured or re- 
moved out of all the jurisdictions.^ These 
recommendations were acted upon by all 
the General Courts at their next sessions : 
by Connecticut, October 2, 1656 ; Massachu- 



THE QUAKERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 23 

setts, October 14, 1656 ; New Haven, May 27, 
1657 ; Plymouth, June 3, 1657. 

In Massachusetts the action of the Gen- 
eral Court was most decided and severe. 
Shipmasters who brought Quakers into the 
jurisdiction were to be fined one hundred 
pounds, and to give security for the return 
of such passengers to the port from which 
they came. Quakers coming to the colony 
were to be ''forthwith committed to the 
House of Correction, and at their entrance 
to be severely whipped, and by the master 
thereof to be kept constantly at work, and 
none suffered to converse or speak with them 
during the time of their imprisonment." A 
fine of five pounds was imposed upon the 
importation, circulation, or concealment of 
Quaker books ; persons presuming to de- 
fend heretical opinions of the said Quakers 
should be fined two pounds for the first 
offence, four pounds for the second ; for the 
third offence should be sent to the House of 
Correction till they could be conveniently 
sent out of the colony ; and what person or 
persons soever should revile the officer or 
person of magistrates or ministers, '' as was 
usual with the Quakers," should be severely 
whipped, or pay the sum of five pounds.^ 

It was not long before the law was put 



24 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

into operation. The first cases were Ann 
Burden and Mary Dyer. They were im- 
prisoned for two or three months, and then 
Burden, after having all of her little prop- 
erty taken from her in fines and jail charges, 
was sent back to England, and Dyer was 
delivered to her husband, the Secretary of 
Ehode Island, upon his giving security not 
to lodge her in any town in the colony nor 
permit any to speak with her. ^^ 

Mary Clarke, however, who had come 
from England '^to warn these persecutors to 
desist from their iniquity," was whipped, re- 
ceiving twenty stripes with a whip of three 
cords, knotted at the ends. Charles Holden 
and John Copeland, who had been sent away 
the year before, returned to the colony, and 
were whipped . thirty stripes apiece and im- 
prisoned, and Lawrence and Cassandra 
Southwick were imprisoned and fined for 
harboring them. Eichard Dowdney, who 
arrived from England to bear his testimony, 
was scourged and imprisoned, and, together 
with Holden and Copeland, was reshipped to 
England. 11 

The authorities now thought that their 
laws were too lenient, and in October 1657 
they were made more rigorous. The ^e 
for entertaining Quakers was increased to 



THE QUAKERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 25 

forty shillings an hour, and any Quaker re- 
turning into the jurisdiction after being once 
punished, if a man, was to lose one ear, and 
on a second appearance to lose the other. 
If he appeared a third time, his tongue was 
to be bored through with a red-hot iron. 
Women were to be whipped for the first and 
second offences, and to have their tongues 
bored upon the third. ^^ In May of the fol- 
lowing year, a penalty of ten shillings was 
laid upon every one attending a Quaker 
meeting, and five pounds upon any one 
speaking at such meeting. ^^ 

In spite of these severe enactments the 
Quakers returned ; and the more they were 
persecuted, the more they appeared to aspire 
to the distinction of martyrdom. Holden, 
Copeland, and John Rouse, in 1668, had their 
right ears cut off ; but the magistrates were 
afraid of the effect upon the people of a pub- 
lic execution of the law, and hence inflicted 
the penalty in private, inside the walls of the 
prison, in spite of the protest of the unfort- 
unates, after which they were again flogged 
and dismissed.^* In October 1658 a further 
step was taken in accordance with the advice 
of the Federal Commissioners, who met in 
Boston in September, and the penalty of 
death was threatened upon all who, after 



26 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN BISTORT, 

being banished from the jurisdiction under 
pain of death if they returned, should again 
come back.^^ Massachusetts was the only- 
colony to take this step, which indeed was 
carried in the meeting of the Commissioners 
by her influence against the protest of Win- 
throp of Connecticut ; and the measure was 
passed by a bare majority of the General 
Court after long debate, and with the ex- 
press proviso that trial under this act should 
be by special jury, and not before the magis- 
trates alone. Captain Edward Hutchinson 
and Captain Thomas Clark, men whose 
names should be remembered, desired leave 
to enter their dissent from the law. The 
Court was urged on to this unfortunate ac- 
tion by a petition from twenty-five of the 
citizens of Boston, among whom we find the 
name of John Wilson, the pastor of the Eirst 
Church. These represented that the '^ incor- 
rigibleness" of the Quakers after all the 
means that had been taken was such '^as by 
reason of their malignant obdurities, daily 
increaseth rather than abateth our fear of 
the Spirit of Muncer and John of Leyden re- 
newed, and consequently of some destructive 
evil impending," and asked whether the law 
of self-preservation did not require the adop- 
tion of a law to punish these offenders with 



THE QUAKEBS IN NEW ENGLAND. 27 

death. ^^ In order to justify its action, the 
Court ordered that there should be ^^ a writ- 
ing or declaration drawn up and forthwith 
printed to manifest the evils of the teachings 
of the Quakers and danger of their practices, 
as tending to the subversion of religion, of 
church order, and civil government, and the 
necessity that this government is put upon 
for the preservation of religion and their own 
peace and safety, to exclude such persons 
from among them, who after due means of 
conviction should remain obstinate and per- 
tinacious. " ^"^ This declaration was composed 
by John Norton, and printed at public ex- 
pense. ^^ 

The rulers of the colony had now com- 
mitted themselves to a position from which 
they could not recede without loss of dignity, 
and which they could not enforce without 
great obloquy. They evidently were under the 
impression that the mere passage of the law 
would be enough, and that they would never 
be obliged to proceed to the last extremity. 
But they miscalculated the perseverance and 
enthusiasm of the men with whom they had 
to deal, and were soon involved in a conflict 
of will from which there seemed to them to 
be no escape except by putting the law into 
effect. It would have been better for them 



28 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

to have heeded the wise advice that they had 
already received from Ehode Island, whose 
magistrates had replied to one of the former 
communications of Massachusetts requesting 
their co-operation in restrictive measures 
against the Quakers, in these remarkable 
words : 

" We have no law among us, whereby to punish any 
for only declaring by words, etc., their minds and un- 
derstandings concerning the things and ways of God, 
as to salvation and an eternal condition. And we, more- 
over, find that in those places where these people afore- 
said in this colony are most of all suffered to declare 
themselves freely, and are only opposed by arguments in 
discourse, there they least of all desire to come. And we 
are informed that they begin to loathe this place, for 
that they are not opposed by the civil authority, but, with 
all patience and meekness, are suffered to say over their 
pretended revelations and admonitions. Nor are they 
like or able to gain many here to their way. Surely, we 
find that they delight to be persecuted by civil powers ; 
and when they are so, they are like to gain more adhe- 
rents by the conceit of their painful sufferings than by 
consent to their pernicious sayings." '^ 

The law was passed in October 1658, and 
at first it seemed to have accomplished its 
object. The first six Quakers who were 
banished after it had been put in force went 
away and made no attempt to come back ; 
but in June 1659 four who were more reso- 
lute and determined appeared in Boston 



THE QUAKERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 29 

with the avowed intention of defying the 
law. They were WilHam Eobinson, Marma- 
duke Stevenson, Nicholas Davis, and Mary 
Dyer. They were arrested and sentenced to 
banishment (September 12th), with the threat 
that they should suffer death if they re- 
mained or returned to the colony. Nicholas 
Davis and Mary Dyer ^' found freedom to 
depart ; but the other two were constrained 
in the love and power of the Lord not to 
depart, but to stay in the jurisdiction, and 
to try the bloody law unto death." ^^ They 
withdrew to the New Hampshire settlements, 
but in about four weeks returned to Boston 
prepared to die, and were joined there by 
Mary Dyer, who had decided to share their 
fate. They were arraigned before the Gen- 
eral Court, which was then in session, and 
admitting that they were the persons ban- 
ished by the last Court of Assistants, were 
sentenced to be hanged in a week from that 
time (October 19th). ^^ The authorities evi- 
dently were afraid of popular sympathy, for 
they gave orders for a military guard of one 
hundred men to conduct them to the gal- 
lows, while another military force was 
charged to watch the rest of the town, and 
the selectmen were instructed to ^^ press ten 
or twelve able and faithful persons every 



30 ESSAYS IN AMEBIC AN HISTOBY. 

night to watch the town and guard the 
prison." 

Neither side would yield : the Quakers had 
come back with the declared purpose of 
dying for their faith and for the principle 
of religious liberty ; the authorities did not 
dare to withdraw from the position in which 
they had rashly placed themselves^ and the 
leaders do not seem to have had any desire 
to do so. They felt that the question of 
their authority was at stake, and that if 
they yielded their power over the people 
would be gone. They were willing to claim 
for themselves and their institutions the 
protection of the laws of England, but they 
would not admit any appeal to those laws 
when they conflicted with the colonial regu- 
lations. They claimed to own the colony in 
full sovereignty, in virtue of their charter 
on the one hand and their deeds from the 
Indians on the other, and they argued that 
they had the same right to exclude obnox- 
ious and dangerous persons, and to destroy 
them if they persistently thrust themselves 
upon them, that a householder has of resist- 
ing a burglar, or a shepherd of killing the 
wolves that break into his sheepfold. 

It is a great mistake to say that they had 
come to the colony from a zeal for religious 



THE qUAKEBS IN NEW ENGLAND. 31 

liberty. What they had come for was to 
be in a place where they could order relig- 
ious affairs to suit themselves. As Besse, 
the Quaker historian, shrewdly remarks : 
^ ' They appear not so inconsistent with them- 
selves as some have thought, because when 
under oppression they pleaded for liberty 
of conscience, they understood it not as the 
natural and common right of all mankind, 
but as a peculiar privilege of the orthodox." ^ 

The tragedy was performed on the twenty- 
seventh day of October 1659 ; the prisoners, 
walking hand in hand, were brought to the 
gallows by the soldiers. They were insulted 
in their last moments by the bigoted Wilson, 
and when they tried to address the people 
their voices were drowned by the beating of 
the drums. Eobinson and Stevenson died 
bravely, and Mary Dyer mounted the ladder 
to meet her fate ; her skirts were tied, the 
rope was about her neck, and she was on the 
point of being ^Hurned off," when she was 
released by the magistrates in consideration 
of the intercession of her son, who had come 
up from Ehode Island to try to save his 
mother's life. She unwillingly accepted 
the grudging gift, and went back to Ehode 
Island. 2^ 

The popular feeling was so strong against 



32 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTOEY. 

the magistrates for their severity, that they 
thought it best to put forth a declaration, in 
which they argued that their proceedings 
were justified by the law of self-defence, and 
by the precedent of the English laws against 
the Jesuits ; and they calmly stated that 
what they had done was only to present the 
point of their sword in their own defence, 
that the Quakers who had rushed upon it 
had become '^ felons de 5e," and that their 
former proceedings and their mercy to Mary 
Dyer upon the ^' inconsiderable intercession" 
of her son '^manifestly evinced that they 
desired their lives absent rather than their 
death present." ^ 

The bodies of the unfortunate men were 
treated with indecent brutality, and were 
buried naked beneath the gallows. Mrs. 
Dyer remained away for six months, and 
then the spirit moved her to return once 
more and die. Her husband wrote to Endi- 
cott to beg her life, but without avail. No 
mercy could be shown her as long as she 
defied the law. It is said that her life was 
offered her if she would promise to keep out 
of the colony henceforth, but she declined to 
receive the favor. ^^ "In obedience to the 
will of the Lord I came," said she, '^and in 
his will I abide faithful to the death." 



THE QUAKERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 33 

Meanwhile the prisons and the house of 
correction had been the fate of other delin- 
quents, and the jailer and executioner had 
had plenty of employment with the scourge. 
The South wicks, with their eldest son Josiah, 
were whipped, fined, and imprisoned for 
withdrawing from the public services and 
worshipping by themselves, and their two 
younger children were ordered to be sold 
as slaves to the West Indies in satisfaction 
of the fines imposed. ^^ W. Shattuck was 
whipped, fined, and imprisoned. Sarah Gib- 
bons and Dorothy Waugh were whipped. 
Hored Gardner, a woman with a suck- 
ing babe, and a young girl who came 
into the colony with her, were scourged 
with the ^Hhree-fold knotted whip, and 
during her tortures she prayed for her per- 
secutors." 

William Brand was thrown into the House 
of Correction, and, refusing to work, was 
beaten constantly by the brutal jailer with a 
tarred rope an inch thick. The pathetic 
record says : ^^ His back and arms were 
bruised black, and the blood was hanging as 
in bags under his arms, and so into one was 
his flesh beaten that the sign of a particular 
blow could not be seen, for all became as a 
jelly.27 
3 



34 ESSAYS IN AMEBIC AN HISTORY, 

William Leddra and Eouse, whose ears 
had been cut off, were ordered to be whipped 
twice a week with increasing severity until 
they consented to work, and were at last dis- 
missed from the colony under pain of death 
if they returned. 

Patience Scott, a girl eleven years old, 
was imprisoned as a Quaker, but discharged, 
after a period of detention, in consideration 
of her youth ; but her mother, Catherine 
Scott, for reproving the magistrates for a 
deed of darkness, was whipped ten stripes, 
although she was admitted by them to be 
otherwise of blameless life and conversation. 

Christopher Holden, who, in spite of losing 
his ears in 1658, had returned once more, 
was banished upon pain of death by the same 
court that had hanged Eobinson and Steven- 
son.^^ Seven or eight persons were fined, 
some as high as ten pounds, for entertaining 
Quakers, and Edward Wharton, for piloting 
them from one place to another, was ordered 
to be whipped twenty stripes, and bound to 
his good behavior. Divers others were then 
brought upon trial, '' for adhering to the 
cursed sect of Quakers, not disowning them- 
selves to be such, refusing to give civil 
respect, leaving their families and relations, 
and roaming from place to place vagabonds 



TRE QUAKERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 35 

like " ; and Daniel Grold was sentenced to 
be whipped thirty stripes, Eobert Harper 
fifteen, and they, with Alice Courland, Mary 
Scott, and Hope Clifton, banished upon pain 
of death ; William Kingswill whipped fifteen 
stripes ; Margaret Smith, Mary Trask, and 
Provided Sonthwick ten stripes each, and 
Hannah Phelps admonished.^ In No- 
vember, William Leddra, who had been re- 
leased, returned, and was at once arrested. 
On his trial the opportunity of withdrawal 
was again extended, but he refused to accept 
it, and was executed March 1, 1661. As he 
ascended the ladder he was heard to say : 
*'A11 that will be Christ's disciples must 
take up the cross," and just as he was 
being thrown from its rounds, he cried in 
the words of Stephen, ^^Lord Jesus, 
receive my spirit." Wenlock Christison, who 
had been before this sentenced to death, but 
allowed to leave the colony, had returned, 
and during Leddra's trial he came boldly 
before the Court and told the astonished 
judges : '^ I am come here to warn you that 
ye shed no more innocent blood." He was at 
once arrested, and was brought up for trial 
three months later. There was an unusual 
difference of opinion in regard to the case, 
and the condemnation was only secured by 



36 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTOBT. 

the violence of Endicott, who was able to 
browbeat the others into consent. But the 
sentence they passed was never executed. 
The people were tired of bloodshed, and the 
opposition which was shown in the General 
Court to any further proceedings was so 
great as to make a change in the law 
necessary. ^^ 

The humanity of the delegates to the 
Court was probably considerably quickened 
by a sense of the dangerous position in 
which the colony stood since the restoration 
of Charles II., who, they might naturally 
fear, would call them to an account for their 
proceedings, especially as the colony had 
allowed nearly a year to pass without any 
recognition of the change in the political 
situation. 

The G-eneral Court attempted to save its 
dignity by interposing a still greater num- 
ber of shameful and unusual punishments 
between the first offence and the death pen- 
alty, and declared that, ^^ being desirous to 
try all means with as much lenity as might 
consist with safety to prevent the intrusions 
of the Quakers, who had not been restrained 
by the laws already provided, they would 
henceforth order that such intruders should 
be tied to a cart's tail and whipped from 



THE QUAKERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 37 

town to town toward the borders of the 
jurisdiction. Should they return after being 
dealt with thus thrice, they were to be 
branded with the letter R on their left 
shoulder, and be severely whipped and sent 
away again at the cart's tail. Should they 
again return, they were to be liable to the 
former law of banishment under pain of 
death. "31 

It is quite possible that this appeared to be 
lenity to men like Endicott and Norton, but 
it is very doubtful whether the Quakers 
so considered it. It did not prevent, though 
it anticipated, an order from the king direct- 
ing that any Quakers imprisoned or under 
sentence should be released and sent to Eng- 
land for trial. 32 To make this still more 
galling to the pride of the colony, it was 
sent by Samuel Shattuck, a Salem Quaker, 
who had been banished from the colony 
under pain of death if he should return, and 
who, we cannot doubt, thoroughly enjoyed 
his mission and the humiliation of Endicott. 
For a short time the order was obeyed and 
then the '^lenient " laws were put in force 
again ; and, as many delicately nurtured 
Quaker women found to their cost, the 
** tender mercies " of the saints were cruel. 
Palfrey remarks, with great gratification ap- 



38 ESSAYS IN AMEBIC AN HISTORY. 

parently, that ^^no hanging, no branding, 
ever took place by force of this law," but 
that ^^ under its provisions for other penal- 
ties the contest was carried on for a consider- 
able time longer." 

It would be wearisome to cite all of the 
subsequent proceedings ; a few of them will 
suffice to show that the treatment of the 
Quakers still continued to be extremely 
severe, and that in spite of it all they persis- 
ted in braving the threats of the magistrates. 
It was not until 1679, when religious tolera- 
tion was forced against their wills upon the 
good Christians of Massachusetts, that the 
Quakers found any safety within the bound- 
aries of the colony. 

In 1661, when the Quakers were set free 
at the command of the king, some of them 
were whipped at the cart's tail twenty stripes 
apiece, on the ground that they were vaga- 
bonds.^ 

In 1662, Josiah Southwick,who had returned 
from his banishment, was whipped at the 
cart's tail in Boston, Eoxbury, and Dedham, 
and dismissed into the woods with a warning 
not to return. The magistrates apparently 
had found that their old style of whipping 
was too humane ; for the whip used on this 
and several subsequent occasions was made, 



THE QUAKERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 39 

not of cord, '^ but of dried guts like the bass 
strings of a bass viol," with three knots at 
each end — a weapon which, according to con- 
temporary testimony, made holes in the back 
that one could put pease into.^ 

In December 1662 Ann Coleman, Mary 
Tompkins, and Alice Ambrose were stripped 
to the waist and whipped at the cart's tail in 
Dover, Hampton, and Salisbury, and were 
forced to walk the entire distance in slush 
and snow up to their knees. The '' lenient " 
sentence required indeed that they should be 
whipped in each town in the jurisdiction, but 
the constable at Newbury found in the war- 
rant some flaw by which he was able to release 
them. On their return to Dover, they were 
seized by the constables by night, dragged 
face downwards over snow and stumps to 
the riv^er, one of them at least was doused 
in the stream and dragged after a canoe, 
and they were only released because the storm 
was too severe for their tormentors to brave. ^^ 
Ann Coleman, again, with four friends, was 
whipped through Salem, Boston, and Ded- 
ham.^ Elizabeth Hooton, a woman of over 
sixty years of age. Fox's first convert, was first 
imprisoned, and then carried two days' jour- 
ney into the wilderness, '' among wolves and 
bears, " and left there to shift for herself. On 



40 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

returning, she was kept in a dungeon at 
Cambridge two days without food, tied to the 
whipping-post and flogged there, then taken 
to Watertown, where she was flogged with 
willow rods, flogged again at Dedham, and 
then carried into the woods as before. 
Coming back once more to fetch her clothes 
from Cambridge, she and a companion, ^^ an 
ancient woman,'' and her daughter were 
whipped in private, in spite of which we find 
her coming once more to Boston, and on that 
occasion she was whipped again at the cart's 
tail.^^ Mary Tompkins, Alice Ambrose, and 
Ann Needham also appear again and again 
in the records of suffering. One Edward 
Wharton, who was most resolute in defying 
the authorities, was constantly under arrest, 
and even a bare enumeration of his floggings 
would fill a page. 

In 1665 Deborah Wilson, for going naked 
through the streets of Salem ^^for a sign," 
was whipped ; but the constable executed his 
office so mercifully that he was displaced. 
There is a pathetic incident mentioned by 
Bishop, the Quaker historian, that ^^ her ten- 
der husband, though not altogether of her 
way, followed after," as she underwent her 
punishment, '^clapping his hat sometimes 
between the whip and her back." ^^ 



THE QUAKERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 41 

Eliakim Wardwell, at Newbury, was fined 
heavily in 1665 for entertaining Wenlock 
Christison ; and this injustice in addition to 
the other cruel acts, so affected his wife 
Lydia that, although a modest and deli- 
cate woman, she came naked into the meet- 
ing at Newbury, as a testimony against 
them. She was seized and hurried away to 
the court at Ipswich, which sentenced her to 
be whipped at the nearest tavern post. 
Bishop says : 

Without Law or President they condemned her to be 
tyed to the fence Post of the tavern, where they sat, 
which is usually their Court places, where they may 
serve their ears with Musick, and their bellies with Wine 
and gluttony ; whereunto she was tyed stript from the 
Waste upwards, with her naked breasts to the splinters of 
the Posts and there sorely lashed, with twenty or thirty 
cruel stripes, which though it miserably tore and bruised 
/ler tender body, yet to the joy of her Husband and Friends 
that were Spectators, she was carried through all these 
inhumane cruelties, quiet andchearful, and to the shame 
and confusion of these unreasonable hruit beasts, whose 
name shall rot, and their memory perish. ^^ 

Eliakim, her husband, some time after, for 
vindicating her character, was by order of 
the court at Hampton bound to a tree and 
whipped fifteen lashes. In 1675 a law was 
passed which made it the duty of the con- 
stables, under heavy penalties, to break up 



42 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY, 

all Quaker meetings and to commit those 
present to the House of Correction, there to 
have the discipline of the house and be kept 
to work on bread and water, or else to pay 
five pounds. 

In 1677 an order was passed requiring an 
oath of fidelity to the country, and legal 
liabilities were imposed upon all who re- 
fused the oath. This struck directly at the 
Quakers, and was believed by them, whether 
justly or not, to have been made for the 
purpose of vexing and plundering them.^^ 
A vigorous protest against it was made in 
writing by Margaret Brewster, who came 
from Barbadoes to bear her testimony against 
the law and to declare the evils that were 
coming upon the colony. Having, as she 
declared, '^ a foresight given of that griev- 
ous calamity called the Black Pox, which 
afterwards spread there to the cutting off of 
many of the People. Wherefore she was 
constrained in a prophetic manner to warn 
them thereof, by entering into their publick 
assembly clothed in sackcloth and ashes, and 
with her face made black." For this she 
and four of her friends were arrested and 
cast into prison upon the charge of ^' making 
a horrible disturbance, and affrighting 
the people in the South Church in Boston 



THE QUAKERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 43 

in the time of the public dispensing of the 
Word, whereby several women .... are 
in danger of miscarrying. " She was whipped 
at the cart's tail twenty lashes, and the 
young women who were with her were 
forced to accompany her during her punish- 
ment. Twelve Quakers, who were arrested 
the same day at a Quaker meeting, were 
whipped, and fifteen the week following. ^^ 

In the other colonies the sufferings of the 
Quakers were not so severe, though in Ply- 
mouth they had to endure banishment, fines, 
and whippings. In Connecticut, thanks prob- 
ably to the wisdom of John Winthrop, the 
only cases which occurred were met with 
banishment, and the Quakers seem to have 
respected the jurisdiction where they were 
mercifully treated. In New Haven there 
were several prosecutions ; Southold on Long 
Island seems to have been the place most 
frequented by the Quakers, though they also 
appeared in Greenwich. The only case of 
extreme severity was that of Humphrey Nor- 
ton, who had already borne his torturing in 
Massachusetts, where he had enraged the 
magistrates by his appeal to the laws of 
England. He was arrested at Southold and 
taken to New Haven, where he was ^' cast 
into Prison and chained to a Post, and kept 



44 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

night and day for the space of twenty Days 
with great Weights of Iron in an open Prison 
without Fire or Candles in the bitter cold 
Winter (December 1657), enough (reason- 
ably) to have starved him, "as Bishop writes. 
When he attempted to reply to Davenport in 
the Court, he was not suffered to speak, but 
was gagged with '^ a great Iron Key, tied 
athwart his mouth." After his trial was 
over he was whipped thirty stripes and 
branded H in the hand.^ Several who sym- 
pathized with or who entertained Quakers 
were punished with heavy fines. In New 
Netherlands they fared little better ; ^^ and in 
Virginia the much-flogged Mary Tompkins 
and Alice Ambrose found little mercy from 
the cavaliers, being put in the pillory and 
whipped with a cat-of -nine-tails so severely 
that blood was drawn by the very first stroke ; 
and George Wilson, ^4n cruel irons that 
rotted his flesh, and long imprisonment, de- 
parted this life for his testimony to the 
Lord."^ In Maryland they were subjected 
to fine and imprisonment for refusing to 
take an oath or to serve in the militia. 
Liberty of conscience was granted in 1688.^^ 
It was in New England, and especially in 
Massachusetts, that the persecution was 
general and severe. The magistrates, as a 



. THE QUAKERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 45 

rule, defended their action, as necessary to 
the maintenance of their authority and to 
the preservation of order and orthodoxy ; and 
their conduct has been extenuated and ex- 
cused, if not actually defended, by modern 
New England historians. 

It is not a pleasant history, but there is 
something to be said upon the side of the au- 
thorities even by one who has no admiration 
for them or sympathy with them. The 
Puritans had not come to New England for 
liberty of thought, but for liberty of action. 
Having failed, as they thought at the time, 
to secure the triumph of their views in the 
church and state of England, they preferred 
to leave the struggle and come to New Eng- 
land, where they could live under their own 
system without being obliged to contend or 
suffer for their faith — a point upon which the 
Quaker controversialists make some very 
sharp remarks.^ 

They considered the territory which they 
held to be their own pecuUum, and claimed 
that by their charter they had acquired 
absolute sovereignty in its limits, subject to 
no appeal to England ; and they realized 
that if appeal to England was granted, their 
absolute authority was at an end. One of 
the leading colonists is reported to have said ; 



46 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

^^ If we admit appeal to the Parliament this 
year, next year they will send to see how it 
is, and the third year the government will 
be changed." The settlement also had in 
their eyes a religious character ; it was 
founded, as they boasted, for religion and 
not for trade, and they held that they had a 
right to dictate the religious usages and 
practices therein, as was shown by their 
treatment of Mrs. Hutchinson and Wheel- 
wright, Koger Williams and Gorton, Child 
and Maverick, not to mention Morton of 
Merry Mount. They believed the Quakers 
to be a pernicious sect, confounding them 
with other fanatical bodies which they re- 
sembled, and they feared that the natural 
consequence of the claim which they made to 
immediate revelation would be communistic 
attempts at the overthrow of the established 
order, such as had been seen a hundred years 
before in Grermany. From these premises 
the conclusion was a natural one, that their 
duty was to nip the evil in the bud, to crush 
the Quakers before they became strong 
enough to be dangerous to the state. Their 
action in banishing the first that arrived, 
before any overt acts were committed, was 
undoubtedly technically illegal ; but if the 
Quakers had been in reality what they fancied 



THE QUAKERS IN NEW ENGLAND, 47 

them, no one would have blamed them for 
their prompt decision. Besides, they had a 
law by which they were accustomed to banish 
heretics, and the Quakers might very well 
come under that description. 

As regards the compelling shipmasters to 
carry them back to the port from which they 
had come, such a custom had prevailed from 
a very early date in the case of undesirable 
immigrants. Winthrop, in his History 
mentions the reshipping to England of a 
crazy pauper woman whom the parish of 
Willesden had sent over to the colonists in 
Massachusetts. The Quakers came in spite 
of banishment, and the more they were im- 
prisoned and beaten the more daring became 
their defiance, the more violent their abuse. 
They spared neither priest nor magistrate, 
and the floods of denunciation which they 
poured out were portentous. It is not to be 
wondered at that a stern and severe people, 
living a hard and cruel life of constant 
struggle with the elements, and in the con- 
stant dread lest their privileges should be 
assailed, should have been cruel in their 
treatment of these incorrigible offenders. 

Judged by the common standard of the 
age, the cruelty of the treatment of the 
Quakers is not so remarkable as to be singled 



48 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

out above all other cruelties for reprobation. 
The Quakers themselves were cruel at times. 
George Fox himself is said to have been a 
witch- finder ; and a son of the Samuel 
Shattuck who bore the king's mandate to 
Endicott appears in the Salem witchcraft 
trials as a prominent witness against some 
of the unfortunates.*^ The folly and fatuity 
of the treatment adopted is more of a point 
to notice. In the colonies where the Quak- 
ers were let alone they caused no trouble. 
Palfrey's sneer, that there was no order to 
disturb in Ehode Island, may be justified 
perhaps as regards that colony, but Con- 
necticut certainly was a well-ordered com- 
monwealth. In Massachusetts, on the con- 
trary, the same persons kept coming again 
and again, and the severer the punishments 
the madder became their actions. It should 
be remembered that the acts usually men- 
tioned as justifying the Puritans' severity, 
such as the performances of the naked 
women at Salem and Newbury, of the men 
who broke bottles on the pulpit steps, and of 
the woman who smeared her face with black 
and frightened the matrons in the Old 
South church, were not committed until 
after the persecution had been carried on for 
years, until scores of women had been 



TBE QUAKERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 49 

stripped naked and flogged by the authorities, 
until men had had their ears cut off, and 
until three men and one woman had been 
put to death upon the gallows. The persecu- 
tion was a blunder, and the details of it 
made it a blunder of the most atrocious 
description. Power was put into the hands 
of local and irresponsible magistrates to 
sentence men and women to these shameful 
and unusual punishments, and brutal con- 
stables and jailers were entrusted with the 
enforcement of the law without any due 
supervision. The most painful part of the 
whole history is the attitude of the Puritan 
clergy, in Massachusetts especially. They 
were bitter and bigoted, hounding on the 
magistrates to their cruel work, and insulting 
the unfortunate wretches when they came 
to suffer. Quaker instinct rightly, no doubt, 
fixed upon John Norton as the ^^ Fountain 
and Principal unto whom most of the cruelty 
and bloodshed is to be imputed." ^ 

For the constancy of the Quakers them- 
selves, their endurance and their fortitude, 
one can feel nothing but admiration. One 
remembers how, centuries before, men who 
like them were willing to die rather than to 
deny their faith had been called the enemies of 
mankind, and accused of a perverse and execra- 



50 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HtSTOBT. 

ble superstition. It must be admitted, how- 
ever, that their behavior was often of a kind 
that would not be allowed to-day any more 
than it was then, although it is to be hoped 
that our modern statecraft would find milder 
and more efficient means of repression than 
did our predecessors in New England ; yet 
when one remembers how the Mormons were 
treated in Illinois and Missouri, and how the 
mob destroyed a Eoman Catholic convent in 
Massachusetts, within the memories of living 
men, we may think it perhaps prudent not 
to be too sweeping in our condemnation. 

The fundamental difficulty in the Puritans' 
position was their illegal and unconstitutional 
government. To maintain that, they were 
led to deny to other Englishmen their rights, 
and to assert an independence of the home 
authorities which was little short of actual 
separation. 

The second evil principle in their govern- 
ment was the union of church and state, or 
rather the subjection of the state to the 
church, a church moreover in which the 
people had no rights except by favor of the 
ministers, a church that was a close corpora- 
tion and imbued with the spirit of the law 
of Moses rather than that of the gospel of 
Christ. In church, as well as in state, there 



THE QUAKEBS IN NEW ENGLAND. 51 

was a consciousness that their existence was 
illegal and illegitimate ; that, in spite of their 
protests to the contrary, they had separated 
from their fellow-Christians in England and 
had formed a polity for themselves ; hence, 
just as they felt it necessary to manifest 
their political authority by acts of severity 
upon any who questioned it, so they deemed 
it necessary to maintain their orthodoxy by 
persecuting those who differed from them in 
religion. They were ill at ease both politically 
and religiously, and they sought to disguise 
the fact from themselves, by making proof 
of all the power that they possessed. Hence 
it was that the conflict arose which has stained 
with innocent blood the early history of the 
land. It is not to be wondered that the 
Quakers should see, in the horrible death of 
Endicott and the miserable end of Norton,^^ 
the hand of an avenging Providence, or that 
they should believe that for a distance of 
twenty miles from Boston the ground was 
cursed so that no wheat could ripen because 
of a blood-red blight that fastened upon it.^ 
But we, who live at a time when we can 
view the history of the struggle with calm- 
ness and impartiality, may respect the grim 
determination of the severe magistrates 
who felt it their duty, at whatever cost, to 



52 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

keep that which was committed to their 
trust free from the poison of heresy and 
fanaticism, while we sorrow at the blindness 
which hid from their eyes the folly and the 
cruelty of their proceedings. We may sym- 
pathize with the tortured Quakers, whom we 
now know to be harmless enthusiasts, yet 
without approving or extenuating their mad 
actions, their abusive language, or their 
grotesque indecencies ; and we may hope that, 
though at enmity in this life, yet, as Brown- 
ing wrote of Strafford and Pym, 

*'in that world 
Where great hearts led astray are turned again," 

both now are able to respect each other's 
loyalty of purpose and fidelity to their re- 
spective conceptions of truth. 



THE QUAKERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 53 



NOTES. 

1 Vide infra, Note 6. 

2 George Fox, Journal. It is well to notice that of 
the ministers mentioned by Fox by name or parish, 
Nath. Stevens, the rector of Fenny Drayton, was a Pres- 
byterian of some eminence, and was ejected for non-con- 
formity in 1662. So also was Matthew Cradock, the 
" priest of Coventry," who was a distinguished non-con- 
formist divine. The priest at Mansetter, who advised 
tobacco and psalm-singing, kept his Uving during the 
whole period of the Commonwealth, and so may be pre- 
sumed not to have been a ' ' Churchman " in the commonly 
received sense of the term. " One Macham," of whom 
Fox speaks, and who seems to have treated him with more 
sympathetic kindness than any of the others, was a loyal 
Churchman and was sequestered in 1645, as a penalty for 
his adherence to the bishop and the king to whom he had 
sworn allegiance. It is rather surprising to find his- 
torians in general, even those who should be better in- 
formed, assuming that, because these men were filling 
the parishes of the Church of England, they were, there- 
fore, Church of England clergymen. 

3 Bishop, George, New England Judged, London, 
1661, pp. 14-25. 

* Geo. E. Ellis, Memorial History of Boston, vol. i. 
p. 181. 
^ Hubbard's History of New England, p. 553. 
^ Massachusetts Records, iv. (1), 276. 
» Bishop, 5-13. 



54 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

^ Hazard, Historical Collections, ii. 349. Rhode Island 
Records, i. 374. 

9 Mass. Records, iv. (1), 277. 

10 Bishop, 38, 39. 
" Bishop, 40, 42. 

>2 Mass. Records, iv. (1), 308. Bishop, 50. 

'3 Mass. Records, iv. (1), 325. 

•4 Bishop, 72, 73. 

»5 Mass. Records, iv. (1), 345, 346. 

*^ Mass. Archives, vol. x. p. 246. 

'^ Ifass. Records, iv. (1), 348. (In payment for this 
work Norton received five hundred acres of land, a good 
price for a sermon. Ihid., p. 397.) 

^8 Tlie Heart of New England Rent at the Blasphemies 
of the Present Generation. Printed by Samuel Green, 
Cambridge in New England, 1659. The arguments used 
in this declaration are so characteristic of the spirit of the 
times that the following extract may be useful. The 
author has been demonstrating that the Quakers were 
heretical on various points of the faith, and that the Scrip- 
tures authorize the pmiishment of false believers. He 
continues : 

" But other Scriptures omitted, I shall here transcribe 
only two more, both of which are eminently pregnant 
with this truth : wherein also are cases put between the 
cause of God and our near relations, on purpose to pro- 
vide against obstructions in this great business of re- 
ligion. 

The first we have Deut. xiii. per totum. 

Relating to all times succeeding that constitution ; ' If 
thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy 
daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which 
is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go 
and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, 
nor thy fathers ; Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor 
hearken unto him ; neither shalt thine eyes pity him, 



THE QUAKERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 55 

neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him.^ 
vers- 6, 8. The second we have Zech. xiii. 1, 3. Ex- 
pressly relating unto the times of the Gospel. In that day, 
viz. : after the Coming of the Messiah in the time of the 
Gospel when the farailies of the tribes shall mourne Chapt. 
xii. 11. Thefamilie of the house of David apai^t, & the 
familie of the house of Nathayi apart, etc. There shall 
he a fountain opened, i. e. the doctrine of Christ under 
Moses' dispensation is compared to a fountain vailed, 
3 Cor. iii. 13, etc. Under the Gospel dispensation to a 
fountain opened. The vail of the Temple & the ceremonial 
law being taken away. And it shall come to pass that 
ivhen any shall yet Prophecie, then his father <& his mother 
that begat him, shall thrust him through, when he prophe- 
cieth. These words [thrust him through] may be under- 
stood either of a Capital punishment judicially dispensed, 
or of any other smart punishment piercing though not 
Capital. 

"Wee through gi-ace abhorre prejudicing the liberty 
of conscience the least measure, and account such report 
of us to be a slander. And through the same grace ; 
Wee both dread, and beare witness against, liberty of 
heresy, hberty to Blaspheme the Blessed Trinity, the Per- 
son and Office of Christ, the holy-Scripture, the tabernacle 
of God, and those that dwell in heaven. Howsoever fal- 
laciously transformed into, and misrepresented under the 
plausible vizard of liberty of conscience falsely so called. 
We say Religion is to be perswaded with Scripture- 
reasons, not Civil weapons : with Arguments, not with 
punishments. But blasphemies immediate and heresies 
carried on with an high hand, and persisted in are to 
be suppressed with weapons and punislnnents ; where 
reasons, and arguments cannot prevail. 

We distinguish between Heresie (Quiet and alone, Tur- 
bulent, i. e. incorrigible) accompanied with soliciting the 



56 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

people to apostacy from the Faith of Christ to defection 
from the churches, to Sedition in the Commonwealth. 
And that after due meanes of conviction, and Authorita- 
tive prohibition. 

We subject not any to Civil or Corporal punishment for 
heresie, if quiet and alone. We do not inflict any Church- 
censure in case of heresie, without doctrinal conviction 
on the Churche's part, and contumacy on the delinquent's 
part foregoing. 

In case of Heresie incorrigible, in conjunction with en- 
deavours to seduce others thereunto, and tending to the 
disturbing of Publick-order, we acknowledge it to be the 
pious Wisdom of the Magistrate to proceed gradually, 
and where gentler meanes may rationally be looked at as 
effectual, there to abstain from the use of any severer 
remedie. 

And according to this method, hath been the gradual 
proceeding of the Magistrate here, with those (hitherto 
incorrigible) Quakers, who from England have unreason- 
ably and insolently obtruded themselves upon us. 1. In- 
structing them. 2. Restraining them untill an opportu- 
nity for their returne. 3. Publishing a law to warne and 
prohibite both them and all others of that sect, from 
Coming into this jurisdiction : otherwise to expect the 
house of Correction. And in case they returned yet again, 
then to loose one of their eares, etc. 

At last upon experience of their bold contempt of these 
inferior restraints, and that after their being sent away 
again and again, they continue to return yet again and 
again ; to the seducing of diverse, the disturbance, vexa- 
tion and hazard of the whole Colonie. The Court finding 
the Law passed, to be an insufficient fence against these 
persons, proceeded to a Sentence of Banishment. 

Their restraint before the Law published, was but 
restraint in the Prison, until an opportunity of shipping 
them away. They who after the Law was published, 



THE QUAKEBS IN NEW ENGLAND. 57 

would that notwithstanding, break in upon us from Eng- 
land, or other forraign parts, by Rode-Island, after their 
correction received, and discharging their dues, might 
return again to the Island, if they pleased. The wolfe 
which ventures over the wild Sea, out of a ravening de- 
sire to prey upon the sheep, when landed, discovered and 
taken, hath no cause to complain, though for the security 
of the flock, he be penned up, with the door opening unto 
the fold fast shut ; but having another door purposely 
left open, whereby he may depart at his pleasure either 
returning from whence he came, or otherwise quitting 
the place. 

Their Sentence of Banishment as Circumstanced, by an 
Impartial and equal eye, may be looked upon as an Act 
which the court was forced unto se defendendo, in defence 
of Religion, themselves, the Churches, and this poore 
State and People from Ruine : which the principles of 
confusion, daylie and studiously disseminated by them, 
threatened to bring all unto, if not seasonably prevented. 
Exile from a wilderness, from a place of exile ; though 
voluntarie, from a place ; confinement whereunto would 
indeed justly be called exile, is an easie exileJ'^ (Pages 
48, 49, 53, 54.) 

19 Rhode Island Records, i. 376-378. See also the letter 
of the General Assembly, 378-380. 

20 Bishop, 95. 

" Mass. Records, iv. (1), 383. 

22 The Sufferings of the People called Quakers, by Jos. 
Besse, London, 1753, ii. p. 177. 

23 Bishop, 89-95, 109. 

24 Hubbard's History of New England, p. 173. See also 
an Address to the King (Charles II.), Dec. 19, 1660, in 
which the colonial authorities argue as follows : '* Con- 
cerning the Quakers, open and capitall blasphemers, open 
seducers from the glorious Trinity, the Lord's Christ, our 
Lord Jesus Christ, etc. the blessed gospell, and from the 



58 ESSAYS IN AMERICA]!^ HISTORY. 

Holy Scriptures as the rule of life, open enemies to gov- 
ernment itself as established in the hands of any but men 
of their oune principles, malignant and assiduous pro- 
moters of doctrines directly tending to subvert both our 
churches and state, after all other meanes for a long 
time used in vajne, wee were at last constrejned, for our 
oune safety, to pass a sentence of banishment against 
them, vpon pajne of death. Such was theire daingerous, 
impetuous, & desperat turbulency, both to religion & the 
state civil & ecclesiastical, as that how vnwillingly so- 
ever, could it have binn avoyded, the magistrate at last, 
in conscience both to God and Man, judged himself called 
for the defense of all, to keep the passage with the point 
of the sword held towards them. This could do no harm 
to him that would be warned thereby : theire wittingly 
rushing themselves therevpon was theire oune act, & 
wee, wth aU humility, conceive a cryme bringing theire 
blood on theire oune head. The Quakers died, not be- 
cause of theire other crymes, how capitall soever, but 
vpon theire superadded presumptuous & incorrigible con- 
tempt of authority ; breaking in vpon vs notwthstanding 
theire sentence of banishment made knoune to them. 
Had they not binn restreigned, so farr as appeared, there 
was too much cause to feare that wee ourselves must 
quickly haue dyed, or worse ; and such was theire in- 
solency, that they would not be restreined but by death ; 
nay, had they at last but promised to depart the jurisdic- 
tion, and not to returne wthout leaue from authority, wee 
should haue binn glad of such an opportunity to haue 
sayd they should not dye." Mass. Records, iv. (1), 450- 
453. Bishop, 113. 

2i Mass. Records, iv. (1), 419. 

•^6 Mass. Records, iv. (1), 366. Bishop, 90, 91. 

2^ Bishop, 44-48, 52-54. 

58 3Iass. Records, iv. (1), 391. 

29 Bishop, 111. Mass. Records, iv. (1), 411. 



THE QUAKERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 59 

30 Bishop, Second Part, 14, 26, 30-35. 

31 Mass. Records, iv. (2), 2-4, May, 1661. 

32 Bishop, Second Part, 38, 39. The Declaration pre- 
sented to the King by the Quakers may be found in the 
Preface to Besse's Sufferings of the People called Quakers^ 
I. XXX., xxxii. 

33 Mass. Records, iv. (2), 24. 

34 Bishop, Second Part, 52. 
35i6id., 58, 65. 

3« ibid., 112. 

3' J6id., 90-105. 

38 76id.,74. 

39J5id.,68, 69. 

■*" Besse, ii. 259. 

« Besse, ii. 260-264. 

<2 Bishop, 154, 155. 

-^3 Bishop, Second Part, 105-108. 

« Bishop, Second Part, 46, 120. 

« Besse, ii. 387. 

^^ '* And you shewed your Spirit, who ran away from 
England, and could not abide the sufferings of your purse, 
and a Prison, and when you were got beyond Sea, then 
you could Hang, and Burn, and Whip, God's Creatures, 
and the true Subjects of England ; yet you would have 
the name of Cliristians who have cast away all Humanity 
and Christianity, by your fmy, rage, and Nebuchadnez- 
zar's spirit ; who are woi*se than the very Indians, whose 
name stinks both among Indians and Christians, which 
is become a proverb and a common Cry, The bloody 
Crimes of Neiv England, a company of rotten Hypocrites 
which fled from Old England to save their purses and 
themselves from Imprisonment, and then can Hang, and 
Bum, and Whip, and spoil the Goods of such as come 
out of England to inliabit among them, only for being 

called Quakers Are these the men that fled 

for Religion all people may say, that now Hang, Burn, 



60 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

Imprison, Cut, Fine, and spoil the Goods, and drink the 
blood of the innocent. God will give you a Cup of trem- 
bling, that you shall be a by- word, and a hissing to all 
your neighbours." Bishop, Second Part, 146, 147. 

^■' See Note 33, on the next Essay. 

48 Bishop, 67. 

*9 Bishop, Second Part, 139. Besse, ii. 270. 

5<^ Hutchinson, History of Massachuaetts-Bay, i. 223. 



n. 

THE WITCHES. 

The story of the witchcraft delusion in 
New England is a sequel and companion- 
piece to the history of the conflict with the 
Quakers. Both exhibit the least attractive 
side of our forefathers, and both point the 
moral that the intermeddling by ecclesiastics 
in matters of public policy is dangerous to 
the state. It is a strange tale of superstition 
and of panic, painful to dwell upon, but nec- 
essary to a proper comprehension of the 
characters of the leaders of New England, 
and of the conditions under which the strug- 
gling colonies developed their strong and 
distinct individuality. It should always be 
remembered that belief in witchcraft was 
not a peculiarity of New England, and that 
the reason the colonists there have been 
judged so hardly for their panic is that 

men have felt that they had claimed to be 

^ 61 



62 ESS A TS IN AMER ICAN HIS TOR Y. 

superior to the men of their generation, and 
thus should be measured by a higher stand- 
ard. Their claim had some justification. 
The leaders of thought in New England had 
advanced in some directions far beyond their 
contemporaries ; in political insight and 
political adroitness they have had few equals 
in any period ; but they were hampered and 
burdened by the very religion which to their 
fathers had been a gospel of liberty and a 
source of inspiration. This had become a the- 
ology with its dogmas and its rules ; the de- 
vout and earnest ministers who had con- 
tended for their faith in England, or had 
braved the perils of the seas and the loneli- 
ness of the wilderness to be free to worship 
God as they chose, had given place to the 
second generation, who had never known 
suffering, and were therefore ignorant of 
mercy ; men who were enthusiastic indeed, 
but not so much enthusiastic for religion as 
for their creed ; not so zealous for Christ as 
for their own peculiar way of worshipping 
him. The result had been a general lower- 
ing of spiritual tone, which was recognized 
and freely acknowledged and deplored by the 
best men of the period. It seems inevitable 
that this hardening and narrowing should 
follow ages of contest and struggle. When 



THE WITCHES. 63 

the faith becomes a war-cry, it necessarily 
loses much of its spirituality. Beliefs for 
which one age has suffered become crystal- 
lized into formulas for the next, and divines 
wonder at the hardness of men's hearts in 
refusing obedience to what once indeed had 
been a law of life, but by being made a com- 
mandment has become a law unto death. 

So, while our New England forefathers 
were clever politicians, shrewd and adroit 
men of affairs, practical and full of ingeni- 
ous expedients, intelligent and clear-headed 
about their secular business, they retrograded 
in religion, and became formalists and con- 
troversialists. Theological orthodoxy sup- 
planted intelligent Christianity, and New 
England religion sank into a dreary series 
of wranglings about Cambridge platforms 
and Saybrook platforms, half-way cove- 
nants and whole -way covenants, old lights 
and new lights, consociations and associa- 
tions, until it became, for a time at least, 
more arid and lifeless than ever had been the 
Church of England, against the formalism of 
which they were continually protesting. It is 
true that a few isolated cases of witchcraft 
are found occurring in the early history of the 
colonies, and it was then that the severe laws 
were enacted ; yet the serious trouble, the 



64 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTOBY. 

great panic, did not come until the first gen- 
eration, 'Hliose men who had seen the works 
of the Lord," had been gathered unto their 
fathers. One cannot imagine John Cotton 
playing the part of his namesake Cotton 
Mather, or John Winthrop, superstitious as 
he was, in the place of Stoughton. Even 
Wilson and Norton, who exulted in the blood 
of the Quakers, thought witch-finding a 
cowardly yielding to popular folly. The 
responsibility of the men of the first genera- 
tion lies rather in the character of the 
religious training they gave their successors, 
a gloomy religion, which in themselves had 
been mitigated by a piety, sincere if fanatical, 
and perhaps also by some recollection of the 
brighter experiences of their childhood's 
days in the more genial religious life of 
England, a life their children had never 
known. 

It is, then, not astonishing that our fore- 
fathers in New England should have been 
victims to a common delusion of their times. 
We may even say that the circumstances of 
their lives were such as to render them espe- 
cially liable to it ; for though the hardships of 
the early history of the settlement grew less 
as time went on, the life in New England 
was, at the best, lonely and depressing. The 



THE WITCHES. 65 

colonists lived dreary lives of laborious and 
uninteresting toil, with few physical com- 
forts, and with poor and unvaried diet. They 
had few amusements, little or no recreation, 
and they were constantly in face of difficul- 
ties, constantly exposed to danger. Their 
houses were on the verge of the mysterious 
forest, where strange sights and sounds 
were to be seen and heard, where dwelt the 
Indians, often hostile and always a source 
of uneasiness. They had few books, and 
those they had were not of a character to 
draw them away from the contemplation of 
themselves. The Bible they had, it is true, 
but to read it for any purpose except that of 
spiritual exercise would have been deemed 
profane. Sermons of abnormal length and 
dryness, controversial treatises, ponderous 
alike literally and figuratively, and, as we 
shall see later, ghastly and blood-curdling 
accounts of memorable providences, formed 
their principal literature. The settlers had 
been for the most part emigrants from quiet 
country towns and villages in England, put 
down in the unknown wilderness, to work out, 
under the pressure of religious enthusiasm, a 
new social and religious polity. The life was 
small, narrow, and squalid, only redeemed 

from utter sordidness by gleams of religious 
5 



66 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

idealism and by the stern resolution of the 
better class of the settlers to keep themselves 
and their neighbors in the paths of right- 
eousness. Their religion was a sombre Cal- 
vinism, giving more prominence to the ter- 
rors of the law than to the comforts of the 
gospel. Living as they did in scriptural 
thought, speaking in scriptural phraseology, 
dwelling constantly upon the similarity of 
their position with that of the children of 
Israel, it is not surprising that they should 
have carried their intense literalism into 
every particular. Their external relations, 
their religious and political systems, were 
ruled by the law of Moses as they imagined 
it from their somewhat uncritical study of 
the Old Testament. Their Christianity was 
profoundly internal and introspective, some- 
thing which was between each individual 
soul and the Almighty, rather than a law of 
social life. The result of this was twofold. 
They were led to ascribe to their own con- 
victions the character of divine revelations, 
and were also rendered intensely morbid, 
sometimes exalted above measure and some- 
times as irrationally despondent. They felt 
that they were the chosen people of the Lord, 
doing a great work for him, in ^^ setting up 
the candlestick of a pure church in the wil- 



THE WITCHES. 67 

derness to which the like-minded might re- 
sort " ; and this feehng led them to believe 
that they were especially exposed to the 
malice and spite of the devil, who desired to 
thwart their purpose. They saw special 
providences in every common occurrence 
that made for their welfare or that seemed 
to vindicate their theological prejudices, the 
envy and spite of the devil in every misad- 
venture or threatening circumstance. Cot- 
ton Mather may be taken as a characteristic 
specimen of the more intelligent and devout 
thinkers among the men of the second gen- 
eration, and for him the whole daily life of 
the colony was a spiritual warfare. The 
very object of his greatest work, the '^ Mag- 
nalia Christi," is to show the special work- 
ings of Divine Providence in favor of the 
people of Massachusetts, and to exhibit how 
they had battled against ' ' principalities and 
powers, against the rulers of the darkness 
of this world, against spiritual wickedness 
in high places." The savage Indians were 
supposed to be devil-worshippers, and to 
serve him at their ^^ pow-wows " in the dark 
recesses of the unbroken forest. Every 
storm, every meteor, every unnatural birth, 
was a portent.^ It is not strange that under 
such conditions a strong belief in the reality 



68 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN EISTOBY' 

of witchcraft should have existed, especially 
when the delusion was general in Europe as 
well as in America. 

The belief in the power of evil spirits to 
interfere with man has been held in every 
age and in all parts of the world. It is a 
survival of that fear of the unseen, which 
filled the souls of men in those early ages 
when, ignorant of the forces of nature, they 
felt the universe about them to be hostile 
and ascribed all unfamiliar sensations to the 
agency of some invisible enemy. It is not 
strange that such a belief should have arisen. 
Man's commonest experiences were those of 
hostility and pain j wild animals were hostile, 
his wilder fellow-men were still more hostile ; 
from both he suffered injuries that were in- 
flicted consciously and with evil intent ; by 
analogy — the earliest, as it is the latest, form 
of reasoning — the other evils he suffered 
must be also the acts of conscious beings. 
The twinges of rheumatism were no less real 
than the pain from the blow of a foeman's 
club ; it was only natural to reason that 
they had been inflicted by an unseen en- 
emy. 

The fear of the unseen, so characteristic of 
primeval man, has left many traces in lan- 
guage, religion, and custom. Like many an- 



THE WITCHES, 69 

other instinct inherited from savage life, it 
remains lurking in the human mind, and at 
certain times comes to the surface. It has 
developed itself in two directions. On the 
one hand it has led to religion, to a faith 
in a supernal Protector with whom the dark- 
ness and the light are both alike ; on the 
other, to a grovelling fear of evil spirits, 
which has been the cause of the belief in 
magic, sorcery, and witchcraft. The fear of 
Jehovah was, for Israel and for the world, 
the beginning of wisdom. The ^^ seeking 
unto wizards that peep and mutter " is the 
parody of religion, which seems always to 
exist by its side. 

It is probable also that the belief in evil 
spirits may have had, in some cases, a different 
origin. It has been often pointed out on his- 
torical as well as on philological grounds 
that, in many cases, the conquest of one tribe 
by another has degraded the religion of the 
conquered into a secondary and dishonor- 
able position. When the Saxon convert re- 
nounced Woden, Thunor, and Saxnote and all 
their words and works, the gods of Asgard 
still remained, in the belief of both convert 
and converter, as malignant enemies of 
Christianity. Whether from a primitive 
fear or a degraded polytheism, the result has 



70 ESS A TS IN AMERICAN HISTOB F. 

been the same ; man tends to surround him- 
self with a host of invisible foes. 

The monotheistic religions, especially, have 
waged a bitter warfare upon this form of poly- 
theism, as derogating from the honors due 
only to the highest. Judaism, Christianity, 
and Islam have all declared war against the 
witch and the magician, at times by stern 
legislation, at times by wise teaching of the 
unreality and nothingness of the pretences 
of those who claim supernatural powers. 

Perhaps the most strange fact in the history 
of the subject, and a remarkable example of 
the impossibility of anticipating every result 
of an action, is that the very efforts which 
were made by the enlightened lawgivers of 
Israel to eradicate this debasing superstition 
have been in later times the provocation of 
the continued recurrence of the delusion. 
The words of the law of Israel have been 
used to prove the reality of the existence of 
the offence it had attempted to obliterate, 
while the severity of the punishments em- 
ployed among a people just rescued from 
barbarism has been made an excuse for 
equal severity under circumstances the most 
widely different. 

Even now such superstitions are extremely 
common among the negroes of the southern 



THE WITCHES. 71 

portion of the United States, and of the West 
India Islands, as they are among the Slavs 
in Bohemia and Russia, and among the igno- 
rant in every land. Even among the educated 
classes there is a more than half -serious be- 
lief in '^charms," ^^ mascots," and ^^hoodoos," 
which is laughed at but acted upon. The 
superstitions about Friday, the number thir- 
teen, and many others of the same nature, 
are still acted upon all over the world, and 
the belief in the evil eye is not confined 
to any one class or nation. Spiritualistic 
materializations and the marvels of Hindu 
theosophy are modern examples of this same 
recurrence to the fears and follies of our 
savage ancestors. 

In the seventeenth century, it was only a 
few emancipated spirits who did not so be- 
lieve, and they were looked upon with horror 
by the majority of religious men as Saddu- 
cees and unbelievers. No less an authority 
than King James himself, the British Solo- 
mon, had written a most " learned and pain- 
ful " treatise to prove the necessity of such 
a belief for all Christian people, a treatise in 
which he expounded satisfactorily, to him- 
self at least, all the most recondite minutiae 
of the subject.^ 

In his reign, by Act of Parliament, witch- 



72 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

craft had been made punishable by death/ and 
the scandalous case of Lady Essex's divorce 
had been decided on grounds of ^' maleficium 
versus banc."* Still more recently, as the 
wise and godly Baxter relates, during the 
period of the Commonwealth, the learned 
Calamy had looked on with approval, while 
Matthew Hopkins, the witch-finder, tortured 
some poor wretches, among whom was one 
unfortunate dispossessed clergyman of the 
persecuted Church of England, into confess- 
ing revolting absurdities.^ Still later, after 
the Eestoration, the usually judicious Sir 
Matthew Hale had condemned and burned 
two women as witches, in the very Suffolk 
from which so many of the New Englanders 
had come, on evidence of the same character 
as that upon which American courts had to 
decide.^ If these erred in believing in witch- 
craft, they erred in good company, with all 
the most orthodox teachers of religion and 
philosophy in Europe, Protestant and Catholic 
as well. Even Selden, who had no belief in 
witchcraft himself, justified the severity 
which was exercised against those condemned 
of that offence, by arguing that if a man 
thought that by turning his hat around and 
saying ^' Buz " he could kill a man, he ought 
to be put to death if he made the attempt, 



THE WITCHES. 73 

no matter how absurd the claim might be. 
Sir Thomas Browne, the well-known author 
of the Religio Medici, gave his testimony as 
an expert at the trial of the Suffolk witches, 
upon the side of the reality of witchcraft.^ 
When the student of the early annals of the 
Colonies realizes the extent of this supersti- 
tion, and at the same time the literal char- 
acter of the religion of the majority of the 
settlers in New England, their bitter hatred 
of theological opponents, and their readiness 
to believe evil in regard to them ; when he 
appreciates how harsh and mean and unlovely 
was the life that most of them lived, and 
observes that, side by side with an exalted re- 
ligious enthusiasm, the lowest and most ab- 
horrent forms of indecency and vice pre- 
vailed, he will no longer be inclined to won- 
der at the existence in such a community of 
the witchcraft delusion, but will rather be 
amazed that, with such a people and among 
such surroundings, its duration was so short 
and its victims so few. 

Although the crime of witchcraft was espe- 
cially named in the colonial statutes, and the 
penalty of death imposed upon offenders, it 
was some time before a case was detected ; and 
the early settlers seem usually to have acted 
most cautiously in this matter. Connecticut 



74 ESSAYS IN AMEBIC AN HISTORY. 

has the unenviable pre-eminence of having 
furnished the first victim, if Winthrop may be 
believed. He notes : '^ One of Windsor was 
arraigned and executed in Hartford for a 
witch " in March, 1646-7.^ Then followed, 
in 1648, the execution of Margaret Jones at 
Charlestown, Mass., whose fate Winthrop 
also describes. She was tested according to 
the most approved maxims of witch-finders 
in England, being stripped and searched for 
witch-marks, or the teats by which it was 
believed the devil's imps were nourished. 
The search paid no regard to decency, and 
when the inquisitors found some small ex- 
crescence they were fully satisfied of the 
guilt of the accused, and she was accordingly 
hanged.^ In the same year the founders of 
the liberties of Connecticut put to death, at 
Hartford, one Mary Johnson, with whom, it 
is related, ^' Mr. Stone labored with such suc- 
cess that she died in penitence, confessing 
her abominable crimes of familiarity with 
the devil. "^^ In 1650, a Mistress Lake was 
hanged at Dorchester, and a Mistress Ken- 
dall at Cambridge, showing that not all the 
superstitious had migrated from those places 
to Hartford and Windsor." In 1651, Mary 
Parsons of Springfield was hanged for in- 
fanticide ; she was generally accused of be- 



THE WITCHES. 75 

ing a witch, but on trial before the General 
Court was cleared, owing to the insujQ&ciency 
of the testimony ; ^ and Hugh Parsons, her 
husband, who was tried and found guilty by 
the Court of Assistants in 1652, was re-tried 
and acquitted by the General Court, ^ ' which, 
after perusing and considering the evidence, 
. . . judged that he was not legally guilty 
of witchcraft, and so not to dye by law." ^^ 
These instances of careful examination, as 
well as the small number of the cases, show 
that in the first twenty-five years there was no 
general panic, and that the authorities were 
inclined to proceed with a deliberation which 
contrasts very favorably with the tone of 
feeling in England at this time. In 1651, 
Goodwife Bassett was hanged at Stratford,^* 
and John Carrington and his wife of 
Wethersfield, probably at Hartford, ^^ and in 
1653, Goodwife Knapp suffered at Fairfield. ^^ 
In Massachusetts there were no more cases 
until 1656, in which year Mistress Hibbins, 
a woman of position, whose husband had sat 
as an assistant at some of the earlier trials, 
was hanged in Boston. It is noticeable in 
her case that though the magistrates had 
refused to accept the verdict of the first jury 
that had found her guilty, the General Court, 
to whom the case came in regular course. 



76 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY, 

condemned her.^*^ Her execution shocked 
the wiser portion of the community, and 
even men of the narrow rehgious views of 
Norton and Wilson, though they did not 
venture openly to oppose the popular demand 
for her life, were heard to say in private that 
they had hanged a woman whose chief offence 
was in having more wit than her neighbors. ^^ 

After her death there were no more execu- 
tions in Massachusetts for over thirty years, 
though the increasing frequency of marvel- 
lous occurrences and suspicious cases pro- 
mised ill for the future. Good sense as yet 
controlled public affairs, in this direction at 
least. In Connecticut witch-finding still con- 
tinued ; in 1558 the wife of Joseph Garlick 
of Easthampton (L. I.) was tried for this 
offence ; in 1659 there was an alarm in Say- 
brook ; and in 1662, one Goody Greensmith of 
Hartford was convicted, on her own confess- 
ion, of having had carnal intercourse with the 
devil, and was hanged for the offence ; two 
other women were condemned with her but 
''made their escape " ; her husband was not 
so fortunate and was put to death. Mary 
Barnes of Farmington was indicted January 
6th, 1662-3, and was probably executed with 
the Greensmiths.^^ 

Other cases occurred, but it is believed that 



THE WITCHES. 77 

this was the last execution for witchcraft in 
Connecticut. The Gallows Hill in Hartford 
was^ however, long remembered, and has not 
even yet lost its unsavory reputation. The 
political changes incident to the reception 
of the charter, by which the colony of New 
Haven was calmly absorbed by its astute and 
ambitious neighbor, seem to have occupied 
men's minds sufficiently to keep them from 
any great amount of activity in this direc- 
tion. Yet, in 1665, Elizabeth Seger was 
found guilty of witchcraft at Hartford, but 
set at liberty, and, 1669, Katharine Harrison 
of Wethersfield was tried and condemned ; 
the verdict, however, was overruled and the 
prisoner released by the Special Court of As- 
sistants ; ^^ four women were tried in 1692, at 
Fairfield, one of whom was condemned to 
death, but not executed ; two women were 
indicted at Wallingford, and a woman was 
tried at Hartford as late as 169T, but ac- 
quitted. ^^ It has sometimes been said that 
the arrival of Andros and the loss of the 
charter in 1687 was the only thing that pre- 
vented a serious outbreak of the delusion in 
Connecticut. 

When the delusion revived in Massachu- 
setts it was with increased force and viru- 
lence. Its recrudescence may be directly 



78 ESSAYS IN AMEBIC AN HISTORY. 

traced to the publication and general circu- 
lation in the colony of a book by Increase 
Mather, entitled '^An Essay for the record- 
ing of Illustrious Providences," etc., which 
contained a detailed account of all the mar- 
vels that Divine benevolence or wrath had 
wrought in the last thirty or forty years. ^ 
At about the same time appeared the account 
of the trials in England under Sir Matthew 
Hale ^^ and of the remarkable mania which 
had raged in Sweden in 1669.^ These hor- 
rible stories became the subject of conversa- 
tion, of meditation in private, and of sermon 
and prayer in public. They were apparently 
read or related to the young as edifying and 
instructive literature ; for, from this time 
forward, children in New England began to 
repeat the phenomena that had prevailed 
on the other side of the Atlantic. 

The colony was in a very excited and dis- 
contented condition. The beloved patent 
upon which the Commonwealth of Massachu- 
setts had been so boldly reared had been taken 
away from them, and they had been brought 
under the government of England. Their 
'^ purity of doctrine" was more than threat- 
ened, as not only had they been compelled to 
desist from persecuting Quakers, but they 
had also been constrained to allow the hated 



THE WITCHES. 79 

Book of Common Prayer to be read in pub- 
lic, and to permit men to worship God ac- 
cording to its rubrical provisions. More than 
this, the king's governor had actually pol- 
luted one of their meeting-houses by using it 
for the performance of the services of the na- 
tional church. It seemed indeed to many of 
the men who were now prominent in the room 
of their wiser fathers, that Satan was making 
a desperate attack upon the colony ; and their 
minds were predisposed to believe any mar- 
vels the result of diabolical agency. 

The first manifestation of the revived de- 
lusion appeared in 1688, in the family of 
John Goodwin, a sober and prosperous me- 
chanic of Boston. His children, all of whom 
were said to be remarkable for ^^ ingenuity 
of character," and who had been religiously 
brought up, and were ^^ thought to be with- 
out guile," suddenly exhibited the most 
alarming symptoms. One of them, a young 
girl, had given some offence to an old Irish- 
woman of bad character, and had been re- 
paid with vigorous abuse and vituperation. 
Shortly afterwards she began to fall into 
fits, which were deemed by her friends and 
neighbors to have something diabolical 
about them. Soon the same complaint at- 
tacked also her sister and her two brothers. 



80 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

and the terrified observers reported that they 
were all "tormented in the same part of 
their bodies at the same time, though kept in 
separate apartments, and ignorant of one 
another's complaints." They were free from 
trouble at night and slept well. Their af- 
flictions always came on in the daytime and 
in public. Their diabolical visitants were 
apparently instructed in theology, and dis- 
played a depraved taste in literature that was 
intensely scandalizing to the pious Cotton 
Mather, who interested himself most deeply 
in the strange affliction of the children. He 
relates that they would throw the children 
into a senseless condition if they but looked 
on the outside of such good books as the 
Assembly's Catechism or Cotton's Milk for 
Babes, while they might read with complete 
impunity Oxford Jests, popish or Quaker 
books, or the Book of Common Prayer. ^^ The 
other symptoms were yet more alarming, 
physicially, if not spiritually. " Sometimes 
they would be deaf, then dumb, then blind, 
and sometimes all these disorders together 
would come upon them. Their tongues 
would be drawn down their throats, then 
pulled out upon their chins. Their jaws, 
necks, shoulders, elbows, and all their joints 
would appear to be dislocated, and they would 



THE WITCHES. 81 

make most piteous outcries of burnings, of 
being cut with knives, beat, etc. , and the marks 
of wounds were afterwards to be seen. " The 
ministers of Boston and Charlestown came to 
the house, and kept there a day of fasting 
and prayer, with the happy result of curing 
the youngest of the children. The others 
continued as before ; and then, the clergy 
having failed, the magistrates took up the 
case. The old woman whose violent tongue 
had apparently had some connection with the 
first outbreak of the complaint, was arrested 
and thrown into prison, and charged with 
witchcraft. She would neither deny or con- 
fess, but ^^ appeared to be disordered in mind," 
and insisted on talking Gaelic, though she 
had been able to talk English before. The 
physicians examined her, and reported that 
she was compos mentis, and on their report 
the poor creature was hanged — a serious blot 
on the usually judicious administration of 
Sir Edmund Andros ; so unlike him that one 
is inclined to suspect he must have been ab- 
sent from Boston when this foolish crime was 
perpetrated. The children gradually re- 
covered, grew up, '^experienced religion " in 
the usual way, and never confessed to any 
fault or deceit in the matter. Hutchinson 

writes that he knew one of them in after 
6 



82 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

years, who had the character of a very sober, 
virtuous woman. ^ 

As these cases may be referred to the cir- 
culation of the record of the former marvels 
and illustrious providences, so now in their 
turn they became the provoking causes of 
many others ; for a full and particular ac- 
count of these was printed, first in Boston, 
and then, almost immediately afterward, in 
London, with an introduction from no less a 
person than Eichard Baxter. This, together 
with the other relations, was circulated 
throughout the colony, and led to a still 
greater outbreak of the delusion. ^^ Men 
thought about witches and talked about 
witches, and very naturally soon came to 
believe that all the accidents and disasters 
and diseases, which they could not explain 
by common natural causes, were the result 
of demoniac agency. 

The strong rule of Andros had ended in 
revolution and disturbance ; but, much to 
their disappointment, the people had been 
obliged to accept a new charter under which 
the rule of the hierarchy was still restrained 
by the appointment of the governor by the 
crown. The leaders, astute as ever, suc- 
ceeded in securing the appointment of Sir Wil- 
liam Phips, an ignorant and underbred sailor, 



THE WITCHES. 83 

hoping to be able to influence him easily, 
and thus to continue their authority. The 
lieutenant-governor was Stoughton, one of 
themselves, whose narrowness of mind and 
bitter prejudices made him a man upon whom 
they could rely implicitly. But before the 
charter arrived, the colony was thrown into 
a ferment of excitement by the dreadful oc- 
currences at Salem village (now Danvers), 
which, to the minds of the majority of the 
population, indicated unquestionably that the 
enemy of souls was making a most desper- 
ate attack upon the community. 

The trouble broke out in the family of the 
minister of the village, Parris by name, who 
had shortly before had serious difficulties 
with some of his congregation. ^^ His daugh- 
ter and his niece, girls ten or eleven years 
old, began to make the same complaints that 
had been made by the Goodwin children in 
Boston three years before. The physicians 
found themselves at a loss, and hence were 
quite convinced that the ailments were super- 
natural, and declared that the children were 
bewitched. An Indian woman named Ti- 
tuba, a servant in the house, tried some ex- 
periments of a somewhat disgusting nature, 
which she claimed would discover who the 
witch was that was tormenting them. 



84 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

When the girls knew what she had done, 
they immediately cried out that Tituba ap- 
peared to them, pricking and tormenting 
them, and straightway fell into convulsions. 
The woman, alarmed at this, confessed what 
she had been doing, but stoutly maintained 
that, though she knew how to find out 
witches she herself was none. The condi- 
tion of the children excited much attention, 
and the more they were investigated the 
worse they grew, and soon several others 
were seized with the same symptoms. These 
all had their fits, and when in them would 
accuse not only the Indian woman, but also 
two old half-witted crones in the neighbor- 
hood, one of whom was bed-ridden as well as 
imbecile. The three were committed to 
prison, where Tituba confessed that she was 
a witch and accused the others of being her 
confederates. They soon had company in 
the jail, as two others, women of character 
and position, Mistress Cory and Mistress 
Nurse, were complained of ; and when they 
were brought to examination, all the chil- 
dren ^^fell into their fits" and insisted that 
the accused were tormenting them. The 
women naturally denied this outrageous 
charge, but in spite of their denial were 
committed to prison, and with them, so great 



THE WITCHES. 85 

was the infatuation and panic, a little child 
of only four years of age, who, as some of the 
girls insisted, ^'kept biting them with her 
little sharp teeth." 

Panic, like rumor, thrives by what it feeds 
on ; and from day to day new victims were 
accused and committed, until the prisons 
were crowded. More than a hundred women, 
many of them of good character and belong- 
ing to respectable families in Salem, Andover, 
Ipswich and Billerica, were arrested, and 
after an examination, usually conducted by 
Parris, were thrown into the jails to await 
their formal trial. ^^ Many of these, in order to 
escape, confessed whatever they were charged 
with, and generally in their confessions tried 
to win favor for themselves by accusing 
some one else.^^ Neighborhood quarrels, old 
sores, spite, envy, and jealousy added their 
bitterness to the prevailing madness. It 
seems incredible that any rational beings 
could have been found to give credence to 
the farrago of nonsense that was solemnly 
sworn to ; yet it was the most marvellous 
tales that found the readiest credence. One 
confession may be cited as a sample, to illus- 
trate what was the force of panic terror in 
the midst of this apparently civilized com- 
munity.^^ 






86 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

"The examination and confession (8 Sept. 92) of 
Mary Osgood, wife of Captain Osgood of Andover, 
taken before John Hawthorne and other their 
Majesties justices. 

' ' She confesses that about 11 years ago, when she 
was in a melancholy state and condition, she would 
walk abroad in her orchard ; and upon a certain 
time she saw the appearance of a cat, at the end of 
the house, which yet she thought was a real cat. 
However, at that time it diverted her from pray- 
ing to God, and, instead thereof, she prayed to the 
devil ; about which time she made a covenant with 
the devil, who, as a black man, came to her, and pre- 
sented to her a book, upon which she laid her finger, 
and that left a red spot. And that upon her signing, 
the devil told her he was her God, and that she 
should serve and worship him, and, she believes, she 
consented unto it. She says further, that about two 
years agone, she was carried through the air, in com- 
pany with Deacon Frye's wife, Ebenezer Baker's 
wife, and Goody Tyler, to Five-Mile Pond, where 
she was baptized by the devil, who dipped her face 
in the water and made her renounce her former 
baptism, and told her that she must be his, soul 
and body, forever, and that she must serve him, 
which she promised to do. She says .... that 
she was transported back again through the air, in 
company with the forenamed persons, in the same 
manner as she went, and believes she was carried 

upon a pole She confesses she has afflicted 

three persons, John Sawdy, Martha Sprague, and 
Rose Foster, and that she did it by pinching her bed- 
clothes and giving consent the devil should do it in 



THE WITCHES. 87 

her shape, and the devil could not do without her 
consent. She confesses the afflicting persons in the 

court by the glance of her eye Q. Who 

taught you this way of witchcraft ? A. Satan, 
and that he promised her abundance of satisfaction 
and quietness in her future state, but never per- 
formed anything; and that she has lived more 
miserably and more discontented since than ever 
before. She confesses further, that she herself, in 
company with Goody Parker, Goody Tyler, and 
Goody Dean, had a meeting at Moses Tyler's house, 
last Monday night, to afflict, and that she and 
Goody Dean carried the shape of Mr. Dean, the 
minister, to make persons believe that Mr. Dean 
afflicted. Q. What hindered you from accom- 
plishing what you intended ? A. The Lord would 
not suffer it to be that the devil should afflict in an 
innocent person's shape. ^^ q Have you been at 
any other witch meetings ? A. I know nothing 
thereof, as I shall answer in the presence of God 
and of His people : but said that the black man 
stood before her, and told her, that what she had 
confessed was a lie ; notwithstanding, she said that 
what she had confessed was true, and thereto put 
her hand. Her husband being present, was asked 
if he judged his wife to be any way discomposed. 
He answered that having lived with her so long 
he doth not judge her to be any ways discomposed, 
but has cause to believe what she has said is 
true." 

When the new charter arrived and the 



88 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY, 

new government went into operation, the 
Governor and Council appointed Commis- 
sions of Oyer and Terminer for the trial of 
witchcrafts. Their action was of more than 
questionable legality, as by the charter the 
power of constituting courts of justice was 
reserved to the General Assembly, while the 
Governor and Council had only the right of 
appointing judges and commissioners in 
courts thus constituted. The Court, how- 
ever, was established, and was opened at 
Salem in the first week of June 1692.^ 
At its first session only one of the accused 
was brought to trial, an old woman, Bridget 
Bishop by name, who had lived on bad terms 
with all her neighbors, and consequently had 
no friends. She had been charged with 
witchcraft twenty years before, and al- 
though her accuser had acknowledged on his 
death-bed that his accusation had been false 
and malicious, the stigma of the charge had 
always remained. Consequently all the 
losses her neighbors had met with, in cattle, 
swine, or poultry, all the accidents or unusual 
sicknesses they had had, were attributed to 
her spite against them, and were now 
brought forward as evidence against her. 
This testimony, together with the charges 
made by the possessed children, who con- 



THE WITCHES. 89 

tinued to reveal new horrors from day to 
day, and the confessions of other women 
who to save themselves accused her, was 
confirmed to the satisfaction of the Court by 
the discovery of a ^^preternatural excres- 
cence," and she was convicted and executed.^ 
The further trials were postponed until 
the end of the month, and in the interval the 
Governor and Council consulted the minis- 
ters of the province as to the proper course 
to pursue. In their reply they recom- 
mended caution and discretion, but con- 
cluded their advice by saying, '^ Nevertheless 
we cannot but humbly recommend unto the 
government the speedy and vigorous prose- 
cutions of such as have rendered themselves 
obnoxious, according to the direction given 
in the laws of God and the wholesome stat- 
utes of the English nation for the detection 
of witchcrafts." ^^ 

The ministers had as little doubt of the 
laws of England being available for their 
purpose as they had of what they considered 
to be the laws of God ; yet it is very doubtful 
whether, at the time of Bishop's trial and 
execution, there was any law in existence 
which authorized their proceedings. The 
old colonial law was no longer in force ; 
and witchcraft not being an offence at com- 



90 ESS A YS IN AMEBIC AN HIS TOE Y. 

mon law, the only law by which their action 
could be justified was the statute of James 
I., which must therefore have been considered 
as in force in the colony. It is probable 
that the execution was utterly illegal. Be- 
fore the next cases were tried, the old colo- 
nial statute was revived and made again 
the law of the province. 

The trials were resumed in July, and 
were conducted in the same manner as in 
the case of Bishop, but with even greater 
harshness. In one case, that of Mrs. Nurse, 
the perversion of justice was most scandal- 
ous. The accusations were so absurd, and 
her character and position so good, that the 
jury brought in a verdict of not guilty. So 
great, however, was the indignation of the 
populace, and so serious the dissatisfaction 
of the Court, that the cowardly jurors asked 
permission to go out a second time, and then 
brought in a verdict of guilty, which was ac- 
cepted. The poor woman, whose deafness had 
prevented her hearing and answering some of 
the most serious charges, was solemnly ex- 
communicated by Mr. Noyes, the minister of 
Salem, and formally delivered over to Satan, 
and, with four others, was hanged. It was 
long remembered that when one of them 
was told at the gallows by Noyes that he 



THE WITCHES. 91 

knew she was a witch, and that she had 
better confess, and not be damned as well 
as hanged, she replied that he lied, that 
she was no more a witch than he was a 
wizard, and that, if he took away her life, God 
would give him blood to drink ; ^ and it was 
believed in Salem that the prediction was 
literally fulfilled, and that Noyes came to his 
death by breaking a blood-vessel in his lungs, 
and was choked with his own blood. 

It would be needlessly revolting to relate 
the details of the subsequent trials, in which 
the Court, driven by the popular panic 
and the prevailing religious ideas, per- 
verted justice and destroyed the innocent.^' 
Nineteen persons in all were executed, all 
of whom, without exception, died professing 
their innocence and forgiving their mur- 
derers, and thus refused to save their lives by 
confessing crimes which they had not com- 
mitted and could not possibly commit. ^^ 
Besides those who suffered for witchcraft, 
one other, Giles Cory, was put to death with 
the utmost barbarity. When arraigned for 
trial he refused to plead, and was con- 
demned to the peine forte et dure, the only 
time this infamous torture was ever inflic- 
ted in America. It consisted in placing the 
contumacious person on a hard floor, and 



92 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY, 

then piling weight after weight upon him, 
until he consented to plead or was crushed 
to death. A nearly contemporary account 
relates that when, in the death agony, the 
poor wretch's tongue protruded from his 
mouth, the sheriff with his cane pushed it 
in again ; and local tradition and ballad told 
how in his torment he cried for ^'more 
rocks " to be heaped on him to put him out 
of his misery.^ This was the last of the exe- 
cutions. The Court of Oyer and Terminer sat 
no more, and in the interval between its ad- 
journment and the opening of the sessions 
of the ^^ Supreme Standing Court," in the 
following January, time was given for con- 
sideration and reflection.^ 

But it may be questioned whether considera- 
tion and reflection would have put a stop to 
the delusion without the operation of another 
and more powerful cause. Thus far, the 
accused persons had been generally of in- 
significant position, friendless old women, or 
men who had either affronted their neigh- 
bors or, by the irregularity of their lives, 
had lost the sympathy of the community.^^ 
But with their success, the boldness or the 
madness of the accusers increased ; some 
of the most prominent people in the colony, 
distinguished in many cases by unblem- 



THE WITCHES. 93 

ished lives, were now charged with deal- 
ings with the devil, and even the wife of the 
Governor fell under suspicion. The com- 
munity came at last to its senses, and began 
to realize that the evidence, which till then 
had seemed conclusive, was not worthy of 
attention. Confessions were withdrawn, 
and the testimony of neighbors to good 
character and life was at length regarded 
as of greater weight than the ravings of 
hysterical girls or the malice of private 
enemies. So it came about that before long 
those who were not prejudiced and com- 
mitted by the part they had played, acknow- 
ledged that they had been condemning the 
innocent and bringing blood-guiltiness upon 
the land. Even Cotton Mather, who had 
been largely responsible for the spread of 
the delusion, was compelled to admit that 
mistakes had been made, though he still 
maintained that if a further investigation 
had been held in the cases of many who were 
set free, their guilt might have been made 
apparent. Some that had served on the 
juries that had condemned the victims put 
forth a paper admitting their delusion and 
begging pardon of God and man for their 
mistake.*^ The impressive story of Sew- 
all's penitence, and public confession of his 



94 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

fault in the South Church in Boston, is well 
known ; more consistent and logical was the 
declaration of the stern-tempered Stoughton, 
that when he sat in judgment he had the 
fear of God before his eyes, and gave his 
opinion according to the best of his under- 
standing ; and, although it might appear 
afterwards that he had been in error, yet he 
saw no necessity for a public acknowledg- 
ment of it.*^ 

Parris, whose part in these acts of folly 
and delusion had been the most prominent 
of all, and who was strongly suspected of 
having used the popular frenzy to ruin some 
of his personal antagonists, was compelled 
to resign his position and leave the people 
whom he had so grossly misled.^ Noyes, 
whose delusion had been at least sincere, 
made public confession of his fault, and was 
forgiven by his congregation and by the 
community that had erred with him. Thus 
ended one of the most painful episodes in the 
early history of New England. 

The other colonies in America were not so 
entirely free from this superstition that they 
should reproach the Puritans for it as a 
special and peculiar product of their religious 
system. There were cases in New York, Penn- 
sylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, though 



THE WITCHES. 95 

there is no record of any one having been put 
to death for the offence in those colonies. In 
Pennsylvania, under the prudent instructions 
of William Penn, who seems to have been 
less superstitious than the Massachusetts 
Quakers, the jury brought in a verdict that 
the person accused was guilty of ^^ being 
suspected of being a witch," and, fortunately, 
at that time suspicion was not punish- 
able.^^ In New York, a certain Ealf Hall 
and his wife were tried in 1665, but were 
acquitted, and an attempt, in 1670, to create 
an excitement in Westchester over Katha- 
rine Harrison, who had moved thither from 
Connecticut, was sternly suppressed.*^ 
There were trials for witchcraft in Mary.^ 
land in the last quarter of the seventeenth 
century ; and in Virginia in 1705, thirteen 
years later than the Salem trials, a witch 
was ducked by order of court.*" 

It is hard to decide how much of all this 
was panic and how much deliberate fraud and 
imposture. There is no reason to suspect any- 
thing worse than pure superstition in the 
early cases in Massachusetts and Connecticut ; 
but the marvellous attacks of the Goodwin 
children in Boston and of the Parris girls in 
Salem seem to belong to a different cate- 
gory.*^ It is almost incredible that the girl 



96 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

who played so cleverly upon the vanity and 
the theological prejudices of Cotton Mather 
was not fully aware of what she was doing ; 
and the fact that theParris children accused 
persons with whom their father had previ- 
ously had trouble, renders their delusion ex- 
tremely suspicious. The great St. Benedict 
is reported to have cured a brother who was 
possessed by the devil by thrashing him 
soundly ; and it is much to be regretted that 
the Protestantism of the New Englanders 
prevented their knowing and experimenting 
with the saint's specific, which, in all ages of 
the world, has been admitted to be wonder- 
fully efficacious. It has been held by many 
that the testimony at Salem was delib- 
erately fabricated ; Plutchinson, writing at 
a time when men who could remember the 
trials were yet living, is strongly of that 
opinion. The case does not, however, seem 
^as clear as that of the Groodwins ; and of 
them Hutchinson, as has been said, reports 
that they were estimable women who had 
never acknowledged any deception on their 
part. 

The phenomena of mental disease are so 
strange and complicated that at the present 
day men are not as ready to set everything 
down to fraud as they were a hundred years 



THE WITCHES. 97 

ago. It is possible to account psychologi- 
cally for all the phenomena recorded, with- 
out being obliged to adopt any very violent 
hypothesis. Even if at the outset the chil- 
dren in either case were pretending, it is 
quite as conceivable that they should have 
passed from pretence of nervous symptoms 
to the reality, as it is to think that absolute 
fraud would pass so long undetected. The 
symptoms described are such as would be 
recognized by any alienist to-day, and could 
be duplicated out of the current medical 
journals. It may also be noticed that many 
of the possessed were girls just coming to 
maturity, and thus of an age when the ner- 
vous system was passing through a period of 
strain. 

The rapidity with which the panic spread 
was most remarkable, and it is painful to 
notice the abject terror into which the popu- 
lation was thrown. Parents accused their 
children, and children their parents, and, in 
one case at least, a wife her husband. Some 
men were tied neck and heels until they 
would confess and accuse others.*^ It was 
a period of the most pitiful mental and 
spiritual cowardice, and those that were 
most directly responsible for the shameful 

condition of affairs were men who, from 

7 



98 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

their learning and their position, should 
have been the leaders and sustainers of the 
popular conscience in soberness of mind and 
charity. But the ministers of New England 
had emphasized the necessity of a belief in 
witchcraft as a part of the Divine revelation. 
The Old Testament spoke of witches, and had 
said, *' Thoushalt not suffer a witch to live," 
while the New Testament supplied the idea 
of diabolical possession ; hence they argued, 
with a style of argument not yet disused, 
that any one who denied the existence of 
witchcraft was a Sadducee and an impugner 
of the truth of God's Word. Soon the rea- 
soning was extended to prove that any one 
who denied that the particular phenomena 
under discussion were caused by witchcraft 
was an enemy of religion. The ministers, as 
has been said, have an unenviable prominence 
in the accounts of this disastrous delusion. 
They were as forward in destroying the 
witches as their predecessors had been in per- 
secuting the Quakers. They hounded on the 
judges and juries in their bloody work, they 
increased the popular excitement by their 
public fasts and prayers and sermons, they 
insulted the victims on the scaffold. It is 
no wonder that, under such leadership, the 
population was excited to madness.'Sit was 



THE WITCHES. 99 

only when they found their own families and 
friends accused by those on whose testimony 
others as innocent had been destroyed, that 
they were able to recognize that the accusa- 
tions were absurd and the evidence worthless. 
Yet it may be said on their behalf that they 
were not really as far in advance of the major- 
ity of their contemporaries as they imagined 
they were, and it is to their credit that, 
when their eyes were opened, they were 
opened thoroughly and not closed again. 
Cases of witchcraft now disappeared from 
New England, while in other lands, where 
there was the same sombre Calvinism but 
less enlightenment, as in Scotland, the delu- 
sion continued for many years. ^ 

The theological spirit now devoted itself 
to barren questions of little moment, around 
which wordy battles raged and hatreds de- 
veloped, only less destructive than those in 
the previous century because the divines were 
no longer the rulers of the state. Keligion 
sank into a barren formalism, which had no 
noble or time-honored forms to redeem it 
from utter indifference. From this deplora- 
ble condition it was roused by three influ- 
ences which led to a spiritual revival : the 
Episcopal movement in Connecticut, the 
preaching and writings of Jonathan Edwards 



100 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

in western Massachusetts, and the preaching 
of Whitefield. The dry hones once more hved, 
and the descendants of the Puritans manifest 
by their earnest activity and deep spirituality 
how stou t and strong was the stock from which 
they have inherited many of their most pre- 
cious characteristics. They may be thankful 
that the old bigotry has not returned, and 
that they are now saved from all danger of 
interfering with public affairs by the com- 
plete separation of church and state. 

Panic terror of the supernatural, when- 
ever it has occurred, has been a parody of the 
prevailing form of religion. When the re- 
ligious ideas are at once narrow and intro- 
spective, when the social life is poor and un- 
satisfying, and when there is also a profound 
ignorance of bodily and mental physiology, we 
have the combined conditions for the ready 
and serious development of religious panic. 
Such were the circumstances of the witchcraft 
delusion that followed the religious revival 
due to the preaching of the Franciscan friars ; 
such were the circumstances in Sweden in the 
seventeenth century, and in Scotland in the 
eighteenth ; such were the circumstances in 
New England at the period we have considered. 
The isolated cases which appeared in various 
countries from time to time were the result 



THE WITCHES. 101 

of superstition and ignorance. That they did 
not cause a panic may be attributed in some 
cases to the better social condition ; in others, 
to the presence in the community of men of 
sense and character who prevented the spread 
of delusion and calmed, instead of exciting, 
the minds of their fellows. It is one of the 
saddest features of the Salem trials, that 
though prominent men whose influence 
might have been expected to be exercised on 
the side of soberness, disbelieved in the real- 
ity of the ^^ possession" and criticised private- 
ly the methods employed, yet they allowed 
the delusion to proceed to its tragical extent 
without interposing their authority to pre- 
vent or at least to denounce it. Brattle, in his 
account of the delusion, written in October 
1692, mentions many by name who agreed 
with him in condemning the proceedings of 
the justices in Salem, and the judges of the 
Court of Oyer and Terminer, but looked on 
while the unfortunates were tormented into 
confession and put to death at the demand 
of popular frenzy. ^^ 

Though we talk of the progress that the 
race has made in learning and enlighten- 
ment, it is alarming to notice how ineradi- 
cable are the superstitions of mankind, how 
germs which men deem dead really lurk dor- 



102 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTOBY. 

mant for ages, and then develop themselves 
with startling rapidity when they find the 
proper menstruum. Man, like other animals, 
seems to exhibit a tendency from time to 
time to revert to the original type, and to 
reproduce the physiognomy of long-perished 
races, with their fears and their hatreds, 
their low spiritual conceptions and their 
dominant animal passions. It is the work 
of education, of civilization, and of religion to 
strive against this tendency. We can only 
hope that as men have, in spite of this, made 
steady progress in many directions, and have 
conquered and are conquering the animal 
that is in them, they may in time get 
the better of all the evil legacies which their 
primeval ancestors have bequeathed them. 
Modern science has removed the fear of 
the plague in all civilized countries and is 
lessening the danger of the cholera ; in like 
manner, we may hope the old terrors will 
also in time be swept away, and man be freed 
from any danger of their recurrence. 



THE WITCHES. 103 



NOTES. 

* Even Winthrop, the governor of Massachusetts, wise 
and good as he was, recorded in his History his direful 
forebodings occasioned by the appearance of a monsti-o- 
sity which the unfortunate Mary Dyer, who was after- 
wards hanged as a Quaker, had brought into the world. 
History ofNeic England, i. 261-3. 

2 Demonologie, in forme of a dialogue, 1st Ed., Edin- 
burgh, 1597, 4to. 

3 1 Jac. I. c. 12. 

4 State Trials, vol. ii. pp. 786-862. 

^ Baxter, Richard, D. D., The Certainty of the Worlds 
of Spirits, p. 53. 

^ A Tryal of Witches, printed 1682, published with a 
treatise of Sir Matthew Hale's on Sheriffs' Accompts, 
London, 1683. Sir Matthew's charge was to the follow- 
ing effect : " That he would not repeat the Evidence unto 
them, least by so doing he should wrong the Evidence 
on the one side or on the other. Only this acquainted 
them. That they had Two things to enquire after. First, 
whether or no these children were bewitched ? Secondly, 
whether the Prisoners at the Bar were GuUty of it. That 
there were such Creatures as Witches he made no doubt 
at all ; For, First, the Scriptures had affirmed so much. 
Secondly, The Wisdom of all Nations had provided laws 
against such persons, which is an argument of their con- 
fidence in such a Crime. And such hath been the judg- 
ment of this Kingdom, as appears by that Act of Parlia- 
ment wliich hath provided Punishments proportionable 
to the quality of the offense. And desired them strictly 



104 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

to observe their Evidence ; and desired the great God of 
Heaven to direct their Hearts in this weighty thing they 
had in hand : For to condemn the Innocent, and to let 
the Guilty go free, were both an abomination xmto the 
Lord." (pp. 55, 56.) 

' A Tryal of Witches, pp. 41, 43. 

8 Winthrop, ii. 307. Stiles, Ancient Windsor, i. 447. 

^ Winthrop, ii. 326. Hutchinson, Hist, of Massachusets- 
Bay (London, 1765-1768), i. 150. Mass. Rec, ii. 242, iii. 126, 
seems to refer to this case, though no names are given. 

'*^ Mather, Cotton, Late Memorable Providences, pp. 
62-65. Magnalia, Book vl. ch. 7. 

'• W. S. Poole, in Memorial History of Boston, ii. 133 
note. Hutchinson, ii. 10. 

^•' Mass. Rec.,W. (1), 47, 48. 

^^ Mass. Rec, i. (1), 96. 

'4 Conn. Colonial Records, i. 220 ; cf. New Haven Col. 
Rec, ii. 78. 

'» History of Hartford County (Conn.), Sketch of 
Wethersfleld, by S. Adams. 

i« New Haven Col. Rec., ii. 78. Lydia Gilbert, of Windsor, 
was indicted for witchcraft, March 24th, 1653-4, but there 
is no record of the issue of her trial. Stiles, Ancient 
Windsor, i. 449, 450. 

" Mass. Records, iv. (1), 269. 

'8 Hutchinson, i. 187, 188. 

^^ Conn. Col. Rec, i. 573. Mather, Remarkable Provi- 
dences, 139. Walker, Geo. Leon, D. D., History of the 
First Church in Hartford. Hutchinson, ii. 16, 17. 

20 Judd, History of Hadley, 233. Conn. Col. Rec, ii. 
172. For her subsequent troubles in N. Y. , Documentary 
Hist.ofN.Y.,iY. 87. 

2^ Calef , More Wonders of the Invisible World. Conn, 
Col. Rec. , iii. p. v. and 76, 77 note. 

'2 Hutchinson, ii. p. 18. " But in 1685, a very circum- 
stantial account of all or most of the cases I have men- 



THE WITCHES. 105 

ti(med was published, and many arguments were brought 
to convince the country that they were no delusions nor 
impostures, but the effects of a familiarity between the 
devil and such as he found fit for his instruments." 

•^3 A Tryal of Witches, London, 1682. 

^^ Horneck, in Glanvil's Saducismus Triumphatus, 
London, 1681. 

25 It wiU be remembered, that much against the will 
of the Puritan leaders, they had been compelled by the 
royal authority to allow the use of the service of the 
Church of England, which they and their friends in 
England had fancied some years before that they had de- 
stroyed. For a similar instance of combined bigotry and 
superstition, cf. Winthrop's history of the mice and the 
Prayer Books. Hist, of New England, ii. 20. 

2^ Mather, Cotton, D. D., Late Memorable Provi- 
dences. Magnolia Ghristi, Book vi. ch. 8. Hutchinson, 
ii. 20. 

" Late Memorable Providences, London, 1691 ; 2d Im- 
pression. Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World, 
postscript. 

*8 Calef, More Wonders, p. 90. Hutchinson, ii. 11. 
Upham, The Salem Witchcraft. 

^ Brattle, Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, v. 62, 70, 71. 
The way in which Parris conducted the investigations 
may be seen from the following extracts from the exami- 
nation of Elizabeth How, May 31st, 1692 : 

" Mercy Lewis and Mary Walcot fell in a fit quickly 
after the examinant came in. Mary Walcot said that 
this woman the examinant had pincht lier & choakt 
this mouth. Ann Putnam said that she had hurt her 
three times. 

What say you to this charge ? Here are three that 
charge you with witchcraft. 

If it was the last moment I was to live, God knows I 
am innocent of anything in this nature. 



106 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

Did you not take notice that now when you lookt upon 
Mercy Lewis she was struck down ? 

I cannot help it. 

You are charged here. What doe you say ? 

I am innocent of anything of this nature. 

Is this the first time that ever you were accused ? 

Yes, Sir. 

Do you not know that one at Ipswich hath accused 
you? 

This is the first time that ever I heard of it. 

You say that you never heard of these folks before. 

Mercy Lewis at length spake and charged this woman 
of with hurting and pinching her. 

And then Abigail Williams cryed she hath hurt me a 
great many times, a great while & she hath brought me 
the book. 

Ann Putnam had a pin stuck in her hand. What do 
you say to this ? 

I cannot help it. 

What consent have you given ? 

Mercy Warren cryed out she was prickt & great prints 
were seen in her arms. 

Have you not seen some apparition ? 

No, never in all my life. 

Those that have confessed they tell us they used images 
and pins, now tell us what you have used. 

You would not have me confess that which I know 
not. 

She lookt upon Mary Warren & said Warren violently 
f eU down. 

Look upon this maid viz : Mary Walcot, her back being 
towards the Examinant. 

Mary Warren and Ann Putnam said they saw this 
woman upon her. Susan Sheldon saith this was the 
woman that carryed her yesterday to the Pond. Sus. 
Sheldon carried to the examinant in a fit & was well 
upon grasping her arm. 



THE WITCHES. 107 

You said you never heard before of these people. 

Not before the warrant was served upon me last Sabbath 
day. 

John Indian cryed out Oh she bites & f eU into a griev- 
ous fit & so carried to her in his fit, & was well upon her 
grasping him. 

What do you say to these things ? they cannot come 
to you. 

I am not able to give account of it. 

Cannot you tell what keeps them off from your body? 

I cannot tell, I know not what it is. 

That is strange that you should do these things & not 
be able to tell how. 

This is a true copy of the examination of Eliz. How 
taken from my characters written at the time thereof. 
Witness my hand 

Sam. Parris." 
Woodward, Records of Salem Witchcraft, II., 69-94. 

30 Brattle, ut supra, 65, 73, 78. 

3^ This confession is cited from Hutchinson, History 
of Massachusets-Bay, ii. pp. 31-33. 

22 This was the commonly received opinion, and though 
opposed by Increase Mather, was much insisted on by 
Stoughton, the lieutenant-governor, and proved the 
destruction of many ; as, if an innocent person could 
not be personated, it followed that those who were ac- 
cused by the possessed were certainly guilty. Cf Brat- 
tle, Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, vol. v. 61 ff., on spectral 
evidence, and the bigotry and unfairness of Stoughton. 
Increase Mather, Some Cases of Conscience concerning 
Evil Spirits. 

23 Hutchinson, ii. 49. Mather, Cotton, Wonders of 
the Invisible World, 65-70. 

'* It is interesting, though painful, to find as a promi- 
nent witness against Bishop, one Samuel Shattuck, the 
son of the Quaker who, thirty years before, had delivered 



108 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTOBT. 

to Endicott the order from Charles II. which had freed 
himself and his friends from the extremes of Puritan 
cruelty. 

^^ Mather, Increase, D. D., Cases of Conscience concern- 
ing Evil Spirits, Postscript. 

5^ Calef , More Wonders of the Invisible World. 

3T Brattle, Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, v. 66, 67. The 
case of Elizabeth How, mentioned above, is a good example 
of the way in which neighborhood quarrels and church 
quarrels were dragged in. She had had a falling out with 
a family by the name of Perley some two years before, and 
they now came forward with depositions that she had be- 
witched their cows so that they gave no milk, and one of 
their children so that it pined away. * ' After this," swears 
Samuel Perley, " the abovesaid goode how had a mind 
to ioyn to ipswich church thai being unsatisfied sent to 
us to bring in what we had against her and when we had 
declared to them what we knew thai see cause to Put a 
stop to her coming into the church. Within a few dais 
after I had a cow wel in the morning as far as we knew 
this cow was taken strangli runing about like a mad 
thing a htle while and then run into a great Pon and 
drowned herself and as sone as she was dead mi sons 
and miself towed her to the shore, and she stunk so that 
we had much a doe to flea her." 

The ministers of Rowley investigated the case of the 
Perley child, and were evidently convinced that the 
parents had put the idea into the child's head, and gave 
plain testimony to that effect, and several neighbors 
came forward with testimony to the prisoner's good 
character. But a fresh collection of marvels was ad- 
duced by a family of the name of Comins or Cummins 
who accused her of bewitching their horses, and other 
neighbors, not to be outdone, testified to other strange 
occurrences, and the court condemned her and she was 
executed on the sixteenth of July. She was, however. 



THE WITCHES. 109 

only convicted upon the evidence obtained in Parris's 
investigation, though the testimony of her Ipswich 
neighbors undoubtedly had great weight with the jury. 
The other trials are of much the same character, some 
reveaUng a most fiendish animosity on the part of neigh- 
bors or relatives, and leaving a very painful impression 
of the condition of country life in New England that at 
time. For testimony as to the cowardice of friends and 
neighbors and the confessions extorted from weak-minded 
persons, see letter of Francis Dane, Sen. ; Woodward, 
Records, II., 66-68. 

38 Brattle, ut supra 68, 69. 

39 Drake, Anyials of Witchcraft, 193. 

^° Increase Mather says : "In December the court sat 
again at Salem in JVeiv England, and cleared about 40 
persons suspected for witches, and condemned three. 
Tlie evidence against these was the same as formerly, so 
the Warrant for their Execution was sent, and the Graves 
digged for the said three, and for about five more that 
had been condemned at Salem formerly, but were Re- 
preived by the Governour. 

In the beginning of February, 1693, the Court sate at 
Charlestown, where the Judge exprest himself to this 
effect. TJiat ivho it was that obstructed the Execution of 
Justice, or hindered those good proceedings they had 
made, he knew not, but thereby the Kingdom of Satan 
was advanced, etc. and the Lord have mercy on this 
Country ; and so declined coming any more into Court. 

In his absence Mr. D sate as Chief Judge 3 several 

days, in which time 5 or 6 were cleared by Proclamation, 
and almost as many by Trial ; so that all were ac- 
quitted 

So that by the Goodness of God we are once more out 
of present danger of this Hobgoblin monster ; the stand- 
ing evidence used at Salem were caUed, but did not 
appear. 



110 USS AYS IJ^ AMERICAN HISTOBT. 

There were others also at Charlestown brought upon 
their Tryals, who had formerly confessed themselves to 
be witches ; but upon their Tryals deny'd it ; and were 
all cleared ; So that at present there is no further prose- 
cution of anyy A Further Account of the Tryals, Lon- 
don, 1693, p. 10. 

The court apparently met December 31st, and sat into 
January, which would account for the apparent discre- 
pancy in regard to the time of its session. 

^^ The authorities were accused of great partiality in 
allowing, in several cases, persons accused by the afflicted 
to escape, when they were either related to them or their 
personal friends. Brattle, pp. 69, 70. 

42 Calef , More Wonders, p. 144. 

43 Calef, p. 144. Hutchinson, ii. 61. 

44 Calef, pp. 55-64. 

45 Smith, History of Delaware County, 153, 153. 

46 Documentary History of the State of Neio York, iv. 
85-88. 

4T Barber, Historical Collections, Virginia, 436-438. 

48 Hutchinson, ii. 62. 

49 Calef, p. 105. Brattle, as above, pp. 72, 78. 
^0 Hutchinson, ii. 22. 

**' Brattle, as above, jd. 75. 



III. 

SIR EDMUND ANDROS. 

The casual reader of the usual American 
histories will receive from them an impres- 
sion that Sir Edmund Andros was a merci- 
less tyrant, whose administration was only re- 
deemed from being utterly disastrous by its 
imbecility. Even Doyle in his first volume 
of The English in America describes him as 
a wretched ^^ placeman," though in his later 
volumes he somewhat modifies this unfavor- 
able criticism and describes him as respect- 
able but stupid. Yet the fact remains, 
that the authorities in England held him 
sufficiently in esteem to send him to New 
York as lieutenant-governor under the Duke 
of York, and to New England as governor 
and captain- general of the united Dominion, 
which included New York and New Jersey 
as well as New England proper ; and after a 
complete revolution in politics in England 



112 ESS A YS IN AMERICAN HIS TOB F. 

Andros was the man selected for the best 
position in the gift of the Board of Trade 
and Plantations, the governorship of Vir- 
ginia. A man who had served the Stuarts 
well and faithfully, even incurring the odium 
which naturally attached to the agents of 
their unpopular measures, must have exhib- 
ited something more than dull stupidity, to 
recommend him to the officials of the Eevo- 
lution. The career of a public servant under 
so many administrations must, at any rate, 
be of interest to all students of American 
history. 

It is the unfortunate fate of many excel- 
lent and useful officials, that, in the perform- 
ance of their duty to the state, they are 
obliged to render themselves personally un- 
popular. It may freely be admitted that the 
British crown was generally unfortunate in 
the selection of its representatives in the 
American colonies ; but, by a strange injus- 
tice of history, many of the utterly bad ones 
have had their faults forgotten or condoned, 
while one of the most able and efficient of 
them all, in spite of the careful and scholarly 
works in which his character has been vin- 
dicated, remains pilloried in the popular 
histories of the American colonies as a tyrant 
and oppressor. 



SIR EDMUND ANDBOS. 113 

The caustic pens of the Mathers and the 
bitter spite of the early New England histo- 
rians have drawn for us an Andros whose 
haughty and vindictive face rises before the 
mind whenever the name is mentioned. 
Local patriotism in Connecticut has created 
a series of poetical myths in regard to his 
administration, which tend to obscure the 
sober truth of history. New York has more 
grateful memories of the governor who 
secured and extended her dominion and by 
his wise and steady policy protected her from 
her most dangerous foes. Virginia is less 
grateful as yet, the unfortunate quarrel of 
Andros with the clergy sufficing to obscure 
the many material benefits conferred on 
clergy and laity alike by his wise adminis- 
tration. It is a curious fact, that both in 
Virginia and in New England Andros failed 
to please the ecclesiastics, different as they 
were ; but, by those who are not prejudiced in 
favor of spiritual domination, this will hardly 
be considered as a reproach. 

The true reason of the hatred of Andros 
in New England, and of his failure for so 
long to obtain justice in New York, was that 
he was the agent appointed to carry out the 
plan of uniting the scattered and discord- 
ant colonies into one strong Dominion. The 
8 



114 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN BISTORT. 

separatist spirit of those who preferred their 
petty local privileges to the benefits of the 
union, that spirit which has been so danger- 
ous to the country throughout the whole 
course of its history, was at that time suc- 
cessful, owing to the entirely disconnected 
circumstance that the consolidation was 
urged by the ministers of a king who was 
misgoverning his people in England. In 
carrying out these measures, the letter of the 
law seemed to the colonists to be strained to 
the utmost as against what they considered 
their popular rights, and the fate of corpora- 
tions in England alarmed the similar char- 
tered bodies in America. James II., by his 
foolish and wicked projects in England, dis- 
credited his really statesmanlike object in 
America ; the union, so desirable in itself, 
was discredited by the methods used to effect 
it, and the narrow theory of colonial integrity 
and independence survived to plague the 
descendants of the men who maintained it. 
It is important always to discriminate 
between the object sought and the means 
used to effect it. Had the consolidation been 
successful, James would be looked back upon 
as a public benefactor, and the motto from 
Claudian upon the seal of the Dominion, 
'' Nunquam lihertas gratior exstat " which 



SIB EDMUND ANDROS. 115 

reads like a mockery, would have been as 
dear to a united people as the ^^ E plurihus 
unum " which they afterwards adopted. 

New England historians have always 
found it difficult to admit that there could 
be any good in a man who adhered to the 
fortunes of the Stuarts, or who worshipped 
in the church over which Laud had been 
primate. But the time that has elapsed 
since the period of struggle should have 
mitigated, if not utterly extinguished, the 
ancestral hostility of Puritan and Prelatist. 
Men are learning (under the influence of 
commemorative festivities) to revise their 
opinions in regard to the harshness and un- 
loveliness of the Fathers of New England ; 
and it is to be hoped that, before long, jus- 
tice may be done to the honesty of conviction 
and conscientiousness of purpose that in- 
spired those who have been so long described 
as ^^ malignant s." Is it too much to hope 
that men will be able to see that the English- 
men who charged with Rupert, and the Eng- 
lishmen who prayed and smote with Oliver, 
were both contending for a principle which 
was dearer to them than life — the principle 
of stern resistance to the violation of constitu- 
tional law ? If we honor the men who hated 
the arbitrary government of the Stuarts, it is 



116 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY, 

unfair to condemn those who hated the far 
more arbitrary government of the Rump and 
the Protector. 

Edmund Andros was born in London, 
December 6, 1637, of a family that was 
eminent among the adherents of Charles I.^ 
His father, Amias Andros, was the head of 
the family ; he possessed an estate upon the 
island of Guernsey, and was royal bailiff 
of that island. His mother was Elizabeth 
Stone, whose brother. Sir Eobert Stone, was 
cup-bearer to the unfortunate Elizabeth the 
dispossessed Queen of Bohemia and Electress 
Palatine, and was also captain of a troop of 
horse in Holland. 

At the time of Edmund's birth, his father 
was marshal of ceremonies to the king ; ^ 
and the boy was brought up in the royal 
household, very possibl}^ on terms of intimacy 
with the young princes whom he afterwards 
served, who were only slightly his seniors. 
For a time he is said to have been a page at 
court ; but if this be true, it must have been 
when he was extremely young, as court life 
ceased to have charms, if not absolutely to 
exist, after the civil war broke out in 1642, 
and at this time the boy was but five years old. 

Faithful to the fortunes of his masters in 
discouragement and defeat, we find the lad 



SIB EDMUND AND BOS. 117 

in Guernsey with his father, defending Cas- 
tle Cornet manfully against the Parliament, 
and, after its surrender, receiving his first 
lessons in the field in Holland under Prince 
Henry of Nassau. (It is a curious fact, tri- 
fling in appearance, but possibly not without 
significance, that during the last year of the 
Commonwealth, and at the time of the res- 
toration. Increase Mather was chaplain of 
some of the troops in Guernsey, and may 
have, even at that early date, formed the 
bitter prejudice that is so evident in his later 
actions.) ^ The services of the Andros family 
were so conspicuous in this period of trial 
and discouragement, that Edmund with his 
father and his uncle were specially exempted 
by name from a general pardon that was 
issued to the people of Guernsey by Charles 
II. on his restoration, on the ground that 
they '' have, to their great honor, during 
the late rebellion, continued inviolably faith- 
ful to his majesty, and consequently have no 
need to be included in this general pardon. " * 
The young soldier, who found himself re- 
stored to home and safety at the age of 
twenty-three, had passed a stormy youth ; 
his natural boyish loyalty had been strength- 
ened by what he had suffered on account of 
it. He had seen those whom he most re- 



118 ESS A YS IN AMERICAN HISTOR Y. 

spected and revered dethroned and exiled, 
living as pensioners on the grudging bounty 
of inhospitable princes. He had seen the 
legal government of England subverted by 
force of arms by men whose professions of 
their respect for law were never louder than 
when they were overthrowing it, and had 
seen England ground down under the harsh 
rule of a military despotism. He had seen the 
orderly and regular services of the Church of 
England proscribed, its ministers turned out 
of their parishes to make room, not only for 
severe Presbyterians and iconoclastic Inde- 
pendents, but for ranting sectaries who 
made the name of religion a by-word and a 
mockery. It cannot be wondered that the 
young cavalier grew up deeply impressed 
with the horrors of rebellion and usurped 
authority, and with the conviction that much 
might be sacrificed for the sake of lawful 
and regular government, or that, being as 
he was a member of the church that had 
been proscribed and persecuted during the 
reign of the self-styled '^ godly," he should 
have been rendered all the warmer in his at- 
tachment to her orderly and decent rights 
and ceremonies, as by law established. 

It should be remembered that the severity 
shown to the Dissenters at the Restoration 



SIR EDMUND ANDROS. 119 

came largely from their close association with 
the civil war and the government of the 
Commonwealth. The cloak of religion had 
been made to cover the overthrow of the liber- 
ties of Parliament, the killing of the king, 
and the rule of Cromwell ; and it is not un- 
natural, though most regrettable, that the 
victorious cavaliers should have failed to 
make the proper distinction between dissent 
and rebellion. 

A knowledge of these early conditions of 
the life of Andros is necessary for a compre- 
hension of his character. They show the 
influences which tended to form in him his 
most notable characteristics : loyalty to his 
sovereign, a passion for regularity and legal 
methods in the management of affairs, and a 
zeal for the Church of England. The promo- 
tion of the young soldier f ollow^ed quickly, as 
he continued to display the fidelity and capa- 
city of which his boyhood had given promise. 
His uncle's position in the household of the 
Queen of Bohemia determined the direction 
of his promotion, and the nephew was made 
gentleman-in-ordinary in the same house- 
hold in 1660, a position more honorable than 
remunerative, which was soon terminated by 
her death in 1662. His military training was 
developed by the war with the Dutch, in 



120 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

which he won further distinction and made 
his first acquaintance with America and 
American affairs.^ The position he had held 
in the court of the exiled queen won him a 
wife in 1671, in the person of a young kins- 
woman of the Earl of Craven, who had been 
the devoted servant, if not the husband, of 
Elizabeth.^ This Lord Craven was the one 
officer of the army who remained faithful to 
James II. to the last, and, though eighty 
years old, put himself at the head of his regi- 
ment of body-guards to defend the king from 
insult, when William of Orange was already 
in London. 

The court positions held by Andros in the 
reign of Charles II. are not those of a bril- 
liant young cavalier, or a roystering blade 
of the Eestoration who only cared for place 
and plunder, wine and women ; they indicate 
rather that passionate devotion to the house 
of Stuart, which the most worthless of that 
line were always able to inspire, devotion 
generally recompensed by gross ingratitude. 
His marriage was evidently, from the promi- 
nence Andros himself gives to it, a high con- 
nection for a simple country gentleman to 
make, but it did not have the effect of de- 
taching him from a soldier's life ; for in the 
same year he appears still as major of the 



SIE EDMUND ANDROS. 121 

regiment that had been in Barbadoes, and 
even at that time he had obtained the repu- 
tation of being well versed in American 
affairs.^ 

When this regiment was disbanded, Major 
Andros received a new commission in a dra- 
goon regiment that was raised at that time 
for Prince Eupert, in which his four com- 
panies were incorporated, the first English 
regiment ever armed with a bayonet.^ This 
was the period when the proprietors of Caro- 
lina were drawing up their remarkable 
feudal constitution and dividing up lands 
and titles among themselves. Lord Craven, 
who was one of the proprietors, seeing the 
interest that Andros took in American af- 
fairs, procured him a patent conferring upon 
him the title and dignity of a margrave, 
together with four baronies containing some 
forty-eight thousand acres, to support the 
title. This gift, however, was only valuable 
as a token of his friend's esteem. 

At his father's death in 1674, he succeeded 
him in his seigniory of Sausmarez and in 
the office of bailiff of Guernsey.^ He was 
not, however, fated to dwell in quiet and 
cultivate his father's acres ; for at the end 
of the second Dutch war, when his regiment 
was mustered out of service, he was selected, 



122 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

probably on account of his familiarity with 
colonial affairs, to receive the surrender of 
New York and its dependencies, in accord- 
ance with the treaty of peace. The territory 
thus recovered had been granted by Charles 
II., at the time of its first seizure in 1664, to 
his brother, the Duke of York ; and Andros, 
who must have been personally known to 
them both, was now appointed lieutenant- 
governor of the palatine province. His 
commission bears date of July 1, 1674.^^ 
He was well fitted for the position. His 
residence in Holland had made him familiar 
with the people with whom he was chiefly to 
deal, and his acquaintance with American 
affairs stood him in good stead in matters 
of general policy, as his administration soon 
disclosed ; while his connection with the court 
and with the royal family enabled him to act 
as a confidential agent of the Duke. He ar- 
rived in New York in November accompanied 
by his wife, and after some formalities entered 
upon his government. His treatment of the 
conquered Dutch was marked with great 
tact and judgment, and rarely has the trans- 
fer of a colony of one nation to the rule of 
another been effected with so little friction 
or disturbance.^^ 
In regard to the serious problem of the 



SIB EDMUND ANDBOS. 123 

treatment of the Indians he was far-sighted 
enough to continue the wise and judicious 
policy of his predecessors in regard to the 
powerful and dangerous confederation of the 
Iroquois or Five Nations. The importance of 
this can hardly be over-estimated in its bear- 
ing upon the subsequent history of the country. 
It is true that this policy was not original with 
him ; he took it as a legacy from the Dutch 
in 1674, as Nicolls had done ten years before ; 
but it may be said that the honest and judi- 
cious administration of Indian affairs did 
much to save the English colonies from being 
wiped out of existence by a general Indian 
war. ^2 If the Iroquois had been roused to go 
on the war-path, as were the unfortunate 
Indians of New England, it is hard to see 
what could have saved the scattered settle- 
ments. And again, if Andros, by a tortuous 
and deceitful policy like that of the United 
Colonies towards the New England Indians, 
had thrown the Iroquois into the arms of the 
French, who were only too anxious for recon- 
ciliation with them, there is little probability 
that the valor of Wolfe would ever have had 
a chance for success on the Plains of Abra- 
ham. 

As a provincial governor Andros made 
many enemies ; but they were mainly in the 



124 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

colonies lying adjacent to his own. The 
patent of New York was very extensive, and 
covered territory which the neighboring 
colonies claimed had been already ceded to 
them. ^^ Connecticut had vague claims all the 
way to the South Sea, and had been devoting 
its energies during the short space of its his- 
tory to edging along its frontier further and 
further to the westward, in spite of the indig- 
nant protests of the Dutch. Settlements 
had been formed on Long Island, which was 
undoubtedly beyond its limits. Now, the 
dispute was between rival colonies of the 
same country ; and considering the uncer- 
tainty of the title of Connecticut, Andros 
must be allowed to have acted with propriety 
and moderation. He succeeded in making 
good the title of the Duke to Long Island 
and Fisher's Island, where the Connecticut 
authorities were attempting to exercise juris- 
diction ; but the boundary line upon the 
mainland remained an unsettled question 
even down to our own times. At Saybrook, 
Andros did his duty in asserting formally his 
principal's claim, but was wise enough not 
to press a question which would have caused 
great difficulties between the Colonies. ^^ 

With the New Jersey settlers he had still 
more difficulty, as they had various grants 



SIB EDMUND ANDBOS. 125 

and patents from the Duke himself to plead 
for their justification ; but he pursued a 
straightforward course, standing up, as he 
was bound to do, for the rights of his prin- 
cipal, unless they could be legally shown to 
have been granted away. His passion for 
regular and orderly business methods soon 
manifested itself, and his letters reveal the 
indignation of a man of affairs at the utterly 
unbusiness-like ways of the people with whom 
he had to do.^^ 

Besides his commission as Governor of New 
York, he had undoubtedly private instruc- 
tions as to how he should comport himself 
towards his uneasy neighbors, the New Eng- 
land colonies. He was anxious to keep on 
good terms with Connecticut, as New York 
was largely dependent upon that colony for 
provisions ; and his letters to the Connecticut 
authorities are mostly of a friendly character, 
though written in a tone of superiority which 
undoubtedly gave serious offence. On hear- 
ing that the people of Hartford were harbor- 
ing one of the regicides, he addressed a very 
sharp letter to the colonial authorities, to 
which they replied in a tone of injured inno- 
cence, which is quite edifying, asking him 
for the names of those who had so maligned 
their loyalty. ^^ 



126 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTOBT. 

It was impossible for the Connecticut 
Eepublicans to realize the profound horror 
which the execution of Charles had caused, 
and the depth of the feeling of hatred and 
repugnance which the perpetrators of that 
audacious act had inspired. Even after 
William and Mary were on the throne, and 
James II. was an exile, it was found that a 
regicide, of the character and position of 
Ludlow, dared not show himself in England ; 
and during the Eestoration period the feeling 
was intense. The act was regarded by the 
majority of Englishmen as sacrilege, as well 
as murder, for it had destroyed not only what 
was called the sacred majesty of the king, 
but the sacred majesty of the legal govern- 
ment. To Andros the news that Goffe and 
Whalley were escaping justice by the conni- 
vance of the authorities was horrible, and 
must have suggested doubts, if he had not 
found them already, of the policy of allow- 
ing men who would have been excluded from 
all office in England to rule the king's colo- 
nies in America. 

A more serious difficulty arose with Massa- 
chusetts, whose authorities had ventured to 
send commissioners to the Mohawks to treat 
directly with them as an independent nation 
— an act at utter variance with the policy of 



SIR EDMUND ANDROS. 127 

the Dutch and English, who regarded them 
as under their authority, and which, there- 
fore, was liable to plunge the colony in war.^'^ 
The ostentatious assumption of independence 
by the colony of Massachusetts, its claim to be 
free from the laws of England, and the spirit 
displayed by many of its leaders, which must 
have seemed seditious to the legal mind of 
Andros, made it necessary for him to watch 
very carefully any affairs in which they were 
concerned. His attitude brought upon him 
the hostility of the colony, and its authori- 
ties asserted, and constantly reiterated, the 
charge that it was at Albany, by his conni- 
vance, that Philip's Indians had procured sup- 
plies of arms.^^ 

This charge, naturally, was most offensive 
to the loyal spirit of Andros, who had fretted 
a good deal under his forced inactivity in the 
war ; and he repeatedly denied it, challenging 
his accusers for proof of their assertions, 
proof which they were absolutely unable to 
supply. They continued, however, to insinu- 
ate this malicious statement, and it was long 
believed by the people of Massachusetts, and 
led undoubtedly to much of the hostility 
between them and Andros during his subse- 
quent rule in New England. ^^ In spite of 
their aspersions, he continued steadily in his 



128 ESSAYS IN AMEBIC AN HISTORY. 

prudent policy, keeping the Mohawks quiet on 
one side, and, by vigorous measures against 
the Indians in Maine, protecting his personal 
enemies from inroads upon the other. ^^ 
His government of New York was success- 
ful ; the country remained in peace ; its quiet 
contrasted strongly with the troubles in New 
England, and the revenues of the colony 
were honestly collected and wisely adminis- 
tered. To those who hold the commonly re- 
ceived opinion of Andros, it will seem strange 
to find that he urged upon the Duke of York 
the desirability of allowing the colonists 
the privileges of a representative assembly.''^^ 
In November 1677, he returned to England 
on a leave of absence, remaining there until 
May of the following year. 

While in England he received the honor of 
knighthood, a sign that his labors were ap- 
preciated, and gave, in the form of answers 
to the inquiries of the Committee for Trade 
and Plantations, statements in regard to 
American affairs which are of great value 
as exhibiting the condition of the colonies, 
and especially of New York, at that time. 
His replies about New England are such as 
we might expect from a man of his character 
and position, and disclose no hostility. 

He says : ^* The acts of trade and navigacon 



SIB EDMUND AN DEO S. 129 

are sayed, & is generally beleeved, not to be 
observed in ye Collonyes as they ought " — 
a statement which is certainly moderate if 
not grammatical ; and also : ^^ I doe not find 
but the generality of the Magistrates and 
people are well affected to ye king and king- 
dome, but most, knowing noe governmt then 
their owne, think it best, and are wedded 
and oppiniate for it. And ye magistrates 
& others in place, chosen by the people, think 
that they are oblidged to assert & maintain 
sd Government all they cann, and are Church 
members, and like so to be, chosen, and to 
continue without any considerable alteracon 
and change there, and depend upon the people 
to justifie them in their actings." For a de- 
scription of a puritan republic by a royalist 
and churchman, this is remarkably fair and 
correct.^ 

The last two years of his government in 
New York were vexed with difficulties with 
some of the English merchants of the pro- 
vince, who were probably pinched by Andros's 
strict and methodical, and possibly also nar- 
row and literal, administration of the revenue 
laws. He was openly accused by them, and 
by other discontented parties, to the Duke of 
York as dishonest in his management of the 

revenue, and was summoned home to answer 
9 



130 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

to the charges. A special commissioner, who 
was absurdly incompetent for the position, 
was sent to investigate the accounts, 
and he took the side of the merchants in his 
report.^ Andros, however, was able to 
answer satisfactorily every charge against 
him, and boldly demanded a thorough ex- 
amination of all his acts as governor. He 
was examined before Churchill and Jeffreys, 
neither of whom would have been likely at 
that time to have let any one go free who 
had defrauded the Duke, and they reported 
that Andros ''had not misbehaved himself, 
or broken the trust reposed in him by his 
royal highness in the administration of his 
government, nor doth it appear that he hath 
anyway defrauded or mismanaged his reve- 
nue. "2* 

Though completely exonerated, he was 
not at this time reinstated in the governor- 
ship, and the next five years of his life were 
passed in England at court, where he ob- 
tained an honorable position in the house- 
hold, and in his estates in Guernsey, to 
which in 1684 the island of Alderney was 
added by royal grant at a rent of thirteen 
shillings. 2^ In 1685 he received a military 
command once more, and served in the cam- 
paign in the west of England against Mon- 



SIR EDMUND ANDBOS. 131 

mouth ; and the silence of the enemies in re- 
gard to any acts of cruelty at this time is a 
high tribute, for, if they had known of any, 
they would undoubtedly have held him up 
for abhorrence as a persecutor.^ Later in 
the year he was made lieutenant-colonel of 
the Princess Anne of Denmark's regiment of 
horse, under the command of the Earl of 
Scarsdale. 

The accession of James, under whom he 
had acted previously, made it likely that 
Andros would again receive employment. 
In spite of the fact that he was a devoted ad- 
herent of the Church of England, the king, 
who was attempting to restore the Eoman 
worship, gave him his full confidence, and 
entrusted him with the work of carrying 
out a project which had been for some time 
before the minds of the colonial authorities 
in England — the consolidation of New Eng- 
land into a single province. This was no 
new idea of James II. , but had been discussed 
for several years ; and it was a plan that had 
much to recommend it. 

As early as 1678, the Lords of Trade and 
Plantations had been brought to see the need 
of a general governor and a fit judicature 
in the colonies, for the determining of differ- 
ences ; and in 1681 Culpepper had urged the 



132 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

project. A preliminary measure had been 
adopted of appointing a general revenue officer 
for all the American colonies, with the power 
of selecting his own subordinates.^ The noto- 
rious Eandolph, a man of strict honesty and 
probity of life, but unable to see more than 
his own side of any question, was appointed 
deputy surveyor-general over the New Eng- 
land colonies, and devoted his energies to ob- 
taining the forfeiture of the patent of Massa- 
chusetts. The astuteness and bribery of the 
Massachusetts agents were able to defer the 
evil day until the autumn of 1684, when the 
charter was vacated. ^^ This left Massachu- 
setts in the hands of the crown ; the next 
problem was to obtain the vacating of the 
more regular charters of Connecticut and 
Ehode Island. Writs of quo warranto were 
issued, and sent to the colonies respectively ; 
and the submission of Ehode Island, after 
some decent protests, was obtained. ^^ 

Andros was chosen by the king for the im- 
portant post of governor-general, not, as 
Palfrey insinuates, because he was peculiarly 
disagreeable to Massachusetts, and so likely 
to carry out the objects of the king ; but be- 
cause the king knew him personally, and 
knew him to be a man of capacity and integ- 
rity. It is absurd to suppose that James, 



SIR EDMUND ANDBOS. 133 

who was an experienced man of business 
himself, and more famihar with colonial 
affairs than any king of England before or 
since, would have intentionally selected a 
man for the purpose who would endanger 
the success of the undertaking. Colonel 
Kirke, who had been actually designated as 
governor, had been withdrawn as disagree- 
able to New England. It is unnecessary 
here to enter into any arguments to show the 
advantage that would have accrued to the 
colonies if this judicious plan had been suc- 
cessful. New England might have been 
spared much wasteful legislation and ruin- 
ous financial experiments, and would have 
been joined together in one strong province, 
instead of being composed of several weak 
and jealous colonies ; the union, the benefits 
of which it took the colonists so long to learn, 
would have been facilitated ; and a strong and 
united front would have been presented to 
the French, who were beginning now to 
threaten the existence of the English colonies. 
The Stuarts, it is true, were pensioners and 
allies of the King of France in Europe, but 
in America they were his natural and in- 
evitable enemies ; and James, who, unlike his 
brother, felt deeply the shame of his vassal- 
age to the French, was anxious to pre- 



134 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

vent any extension of French power in 
America. 

Andros arrived in Boston in December 
1G86, and was received in a most loyal and 
even enthusiastic manner.^ A large portion 
of the Massachusetts people had grown weary 
of the rule of the oligarchy, and Andros was 
welcomed as bringing with him the protec- 
tion of English law. His government had 
been constituted in detail in his commission, 
and he at once proceeded to organize it and 
to levy the taxes necessary for its support. 
Deprived of the representative assembly in 
which the semblance of free government had 
been preserved, one of the towns attempted 
to resist the tax. The leaders of the move- 
ment were tried fairly and legally, and were 
fined and imprisoned for their attempt at re- 
sistance. ^^ After this no attempts were made 
to dispute the laws of the new government, un- 
til the revolution which overthrew all legal 
authority in the colony broke out in 1689. 

It was very important for Andros that the 
submission of Connecticut should be obtained 
without conflict, as Massachusetts, like New 
York, was largely dependent upon the neigh- 
boring colony for food. The Connecticui 
authorities fenced and parried, interposed de- 
lays, and showed themselves, as they always 



SIR EDMUND ANDROS. 135 

did, clever men of business, exhibiting qual- 
ities that doubtless raised Governor Treat 
and Secretary Allyn in Governor Andros's 
estimation. Finally, however, when further 
resistance was dangerous, a letter was sent 
which could be construed either as a surren- 
der or as not a surrender, so that they might 
have a safe retreat in any case ; and on the 
strength of this letter Andros assumed the 
government. ^^ The period that follows is 
sometimes described as the *^ usurpation," 
but there is nothing in the history of the 
times to give one the impression that the 
government of Andros in Connecticut was 
not as regular and legal a government as 
the colony ever had. If Andros had not been 
overthrown in Massachusetts by a carefully- 
prepared rebellion, which left the colonies 
without a governor, it is not likely that 
either Connecticut or Ehode Island would 
have ventured to resume its charter. Andros 
came to Connecticut in October 1687, trav- 
elling by way of Providence and New Lon- 
don, and from New London across country 
through what are now Salem, Colchester, and 
Glastonbury, to the Eocky Hill ferry. He 
was attended by a ^^ company of gentlemen 
and grenadiers to the number of sixty or up- 
wards," and was met at the ferry by a troop 



136 ESSAYS IN AMEBIC AN HISTORY. 

of horse ^' which conducted him honorably 
from the ferry through Waterfield (Wethers- 
field) up to Hartford. " ^^ Of the transactions 
at Hartford we have the dramatic story of 
local tradition, the only proof of which was 
the existence of an oak tree said to have been 
the receptacle of the charter. For this 
romantic story there is absolutely no con- 
temporary authority, and the details are very 
improbable. The charter very possibly may 
have been concealed, and very possibly in the 
Charter Oak, but the incidents of the famil- 
iar story are, if known, not mentioned by 
any writers of the time.^ The records of the 
colony contain simply the formal but ex- 
pressive entry : '' His Excellency, S^ Edmund 
Andross, Kn*., Capt. General & Govr of his 
]\/[aties Territorie and Dominion in New Eng- 
land, by order from his Ma^i® James the sec- 
ond, King of England, Scotland, France & 
Ireland, the 31 of October, 1687, took into his 
hands the government of this colony of Co- 
necticott, it being by his Ma^^® annexed to 
Massachusets & other colonys under his Ex- 
celencies Groverment. FINIS." ^ 

Bulkeley, in the '' Will and Doom,^^ re- 
lates that Andros was met at Hartford by 
the trained bands of divers towns who united 
to pay him their respects. 



SIB EDMUND ANDBOS. 137 

" Being arrived at Hartford," he continues, "he 
is greeted and caressed by the Govr and assistants, 
and some say, though I will not confidently assert 
it, that the Govr and one of his assistants did de- 
clare to hun the vote of the Genl Court for their 
submission to him. HoAvever, after some treaty 
between his Excellency and them that evening, he 
was, the next morning, waited on and conducted 
by the Govr, Deputy Govr, Assistants i^nd Deputies, 
to the Court Chamber, and by the Govr himself 
directed to the Govr's seat, and being there seated 
(the late Govr, Assistants and Deputys being pre- 
sent & the Chamber thronged as full of people 
as it was capable of). His Excellency declared that 
his Majesty had, according to their desire, given 
him a commission to come and take on him the 
government of Connecticut, and caused his com- 
mission to be publicly read. That being done, his 
Excellency showed that it was his Majesty's pleas- 
ure to make the late Govr and Captain John Allyn 
members of his council, and called upon them to 
take their oaths, which they did forthwith, and all 
this in that public and great assembly, nemine con- 
tradicente^ and only one man said that they first 
desired that they might continue as they were." 

' ' After this his Excellency proceeded to erect 
courts of Judicature, and constituted the said John 
Allyn, Esq. & Judge of the inferiour Court of Com- 
mon Pleas for the county of Hartford, and all others 
who before had been assistants, & dwelling in the 
same County, he now made Justices of the Peace 
for the said County. 



138 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

" From hence his Excellency passed through all 
the rest of the countys of N. Haven, N. London and 
Fairfield, settling the Government, was everywhere 
chearfully and gratefully received, and erected the 
King's Courts as aforesaid, wherein those who were 
before in the ofiice of Govr, Deputy Govr and As- 
sistants were made Judges of the Pleas, or Justices 
of the Peace, not one excepted nor (finally) except- 
ing, but accepting the same, some few others being 
by his Excellency added to them in the several 
Countys, not without, but by & with their own 
advice and approbation, and all sworn by the oaths 
(of allegience and) of their respective ofiices, to do 
equal justice to rich and poor, after the Laws & 
Customs of the Realm of England, and of this his 
Majesty's dominion." 

' ' The Secretary, who was well acquainted with 
all the transactions of the General Court, and very 
well understood their meaning and intent in all, 
delivered their common seal to Sir E. A." s^ 

Connecticut under Andros passed a period 
of peace and quiet. Governor Treat and 
secretary AUyn were made members of the 
council and judges, besides being entrusted 
with military commands, and everything 
went on quietly. There was an evident dis- 
position to favor Connecticut, and every 
reason why it should be favored. We hear 
of no complaint against the government or 
the laws. The worst hardship recorded is 



SIB EDMUND ANDBOS. 139 

the settling of intestate property according 
to English law^ instead of the customs of the 
colony. It is true that town meetings were 
forbidden except once a year, but there were 
frequent sessions of the courts held, so that 
the citizens were not deprived of all the com- 
mon interests of their lives. With Allyn 
the governor was on most friendly terms, 
modifying several regulations at his sugges- 
tions, and entrusting him largely with the 
management of Connecticut affairs.^" To 
make a proper catalogue of miseries, the 
Connecticut historian, Trumbull, is obliged 
to borrow and relate doleful stories from 
Massachusetts, not asserting that they hap- 
pened in Connecticut, but certainly producing 
that impression.^ 

There were many reasons why Connecti- 
cut did not resent the government of Andros 
as much as was the case in Massachusetts. 
In the first place, Connecticut had had a law- 
ful government and a law-abiding people ; 
its charter had not been taken away as a 
punishment, but as a political necessity ; while 
Massachusetts had been fighting for a system 
of more than questionable legality, and in a 
spirit which might well seem to the royal 
officials to be seditious. Connecticut had en- 
joyed a form of government in which the 



140 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

people had really controlled public affairs ; in 
Massachusetts the government had been in the 
hands of an oligarchy, who resented most 
bitterly their deposition from power as rob- 
bing them of their peculiar privileges. In 
Connecticut the ecclesiastical system at this 
time was judicious and moderate ; the radi- 
cal tendencies of the New Haven colony 
had been held in check by the wiser policy 
of Hartford. Persecution had never been 
a feature of Connecticut religion, and its 
history is not disgraced with the accounts of 
frequent religious quarrels, excommunica- 
tions, and expulsions which are so familiar 
to that of the neighboring colony. In 
Massachusetts Andros found himself op- 
posed and thwarted in every way that the 
angry leaders could devise ; in Connecti- 
cut, though men were attached to their self- 
government and resented its loss, he was re- 
ceived with respect and consideration. One 
is led to suspect that, with all their pride in 
their charter and love of their liberties, the 
leading men of Connecticut were shrewd 
enough to see the advantages that they re- 
ceived from the new arrangement. They 
saw the arrogance of their old rivals of the 
''Bay Colony" humiliated; they had the 
pleasure of seeing Hampshire county com- 



SIR EDMUND ANDROS. 141 

pelled to come to Hartford to court, and 
they felt themselves favored and trusted by 
the governor. Besides all these considera- 
tions, from the situation of Connecticut, 
lying as it did between Massachusetts and 
New York, it was much to Andros's interest 
that he should keep the colony well disposed, 
and he took some trouble to do so. 

And, after all, what do the charges of 
tyranny and misgovernment amount to, even 
in Massachusetts ? The real gravamen of all 
the charges is, that the charter had been taken 
away, and the people of Massachusetts did 
not enjoy those laws of England which they 
had always claimed as their birthright. The 
personal charges against Andros were so 
frivolous that the colonial agents did not 
dare to put their hands to them when the 
case was brought to trial in England, and, by 
their failure to appear, confessed that they 
were false and malicious. It is not likely 
that Andros was always conciliatory. That 
a population of dissenting Whigs should put 
difficulties in the way of public service of the 
Church of England, as by law established, 
must have been to Andros unendurable, and 
it is absurd to represent his use of a meeting- 
house in Boston for the religious services 
of the national church as an instance of 



142 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY, 

malignant despotism.^ It is far from im- 
probable that Andros was compelled against 
his will to be as civil as he was to the Ameri- 
can non-conformists, because his master was 
trafficking with them in England. While 
Increase Mather was intriguing with the 
king and receiving friendly messages from 
Father Petre, and while men like Alsop and 
Eosewell and Penn were basking in the 
favors of the court at Whitehall, a governor 
of New England, even if he had wished, could 
not venture upon any acts of oppression 
in America.*^ In fact, Andres's actions in 
insisting on the services of the English 
Church in Boston may be considered among 
the most creditable in his history, and exhibit 
the character of the man. He risked offend- 
ing the king, and did offend the puritans, in 
order to show respect to that historic church 
of his nation, which king and puritan alike 
desired to overthrow. 

It is quite probable that Andros was at 
times rough in his language. Without jus- 
tifying him in this, it may be pleaded that 
it certainly was not an uncommon fault of 
military men ; and besides, there were a good 
many things that must have made the use of 
strong language a relief. He did not have a 
very high appreciation of Indian deeds ; but 



SIR EDMUND ANDROS, 143 

few honest men to-day, legal or lay, would 
differ from him. He reviled the palladium of 
New England liberties, the towns ; but perhaps 
in this he was in advance of his age. He re- 
organized the court system, established tables 
of fees, and changed the method of proving 
wills ; but here the blame is not his ; but 
if any one's, it should lie upon the king who 
established the province, or the council who 
passed the laws. The truth seems to be that 
Andros was shocked and scandalized at the 
loose, happy-go-lucky way of doing business 
that had, up to this time, served the colonies; 
and he labored in New England, as he had 
in New York, and as he afterwards did in 
Virginia, to give his province a good, efficient, 
general system of administration. What 
made it objectionable to the colonies was not 
that it was bad, but that it was different 
from what they had had. The man who 
does his arithmetic upon his fingers would 
count it a hardship if he were compelled to 
use the much more convenient processes 
known to better educated men. The case 
was the same in New England. They did 
not want to be improved; they had no desire 
for any more efficient or regular administra- 
tion than they were accustomed to. They 
preferred managing their own affairs badly 



144 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTOBT. 

to having them done for them, were it ever 
so well. It is not difficult for us to appre- 
ciate their discontent. 

It is harder for us to put ourselves in 
Andres's place, and to feel with him the 
disgust of an experienced and orderly admin- 
istrator at the loose and slipshod methods 
that he saw everywhere; the indignation of 
the loyal servant of the king at hardly con- 
cealed disloyalty and sedition; the resentment 
of a devoted member of the national Church 
of England at the insults heaped upon it by 
the men who had failed in their previous 
attempt to destroy it. 

Andros failed to conciliate Massachusetts. 
An angel from heaven bearing King James's 
commission would have failed. A rebellion 
against his power was carefully prepared, 
doubtless in concert with the Whig leaders 
in England; and when the news of the Eng- 
lish Eevolution came, Massachusetts broke 
out also, arrested the governor, destroyed 
the government, and set up an irregular 
government of its own.^^ The object of 
this revolution was evidently to overthrow 
the Dominion of New England, and to 
resume separate colonial independence be- 
fore the new English authorities had time to 
communicate with Andros. There is no 



SIR EDMUND ANDBOS. 145 

reason to think that Andros would have 
tried to hold the country for James. Ee- 
spect for the law was, with him, the reason 
for his loyalty to the crown; and though he 
was personally attached to the Stuarts and 
had acted under James for many years, he 
was governor of the Dominion, not for James 
Stuart, but for the king of England. 

The popular leaders were indeed afraid, 
not that Andros would oppose the revolution 
in England, but that he would accept it, and 
be confirmed by William and Mary in the 
same position he had held under James, and 
that thus the hated union of the colonies 
would be perpetuated. Their revolution was 
only too successful. They had their own 
way, and the events in Salem in 1692 were 
a commentary on the benefits of colonial 
autonomy. 

In Ehode Island and Connecticut the old 
charters were reassumed. In Connecticut, 
as there had been little break when Andros 
came, so now there was little trouble when 
he departed. Secretary AUyn had managed 
the affairs of the colony before the ^^usurp- 
ation " ; Secretary Allyn had been the chief 
intermediary between Andros and the people ; 
Secretary Allyn continued to manage Con- 
necticut affairs after Andros had gone. The 



146 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN BISTORT. 

particularists succeeded in getting possession 
of the government, in spite of the opposition 
of a strong minority, and Connecticut, like 
Massachusetts, returned to her insignificant 
but precious independence.^^ 

Andros succeeded in escaping once, but 
was arrested in Ehode Island, and returned 
by the magistrates there to the revolutionary 
leaders in Boston. By these he was kept in 
prison for nearly a year, and then sent to 
England, where, as has been said, no one 
appeared against him.*^ Hutchinson com- 
plains that the Massachusetts agents were 
misled by their counsel. Sir John Somers. 
When one considers that Somers was one of 
the greatest lawyers the bar of England has 
ever known, one is inclined to believe that he 
knew his clients' case was too bad to take 
into court. ^ 

The government of William and Mary 
found nothing to condemn in Andres's con- 
duct, and showed their appreciation of his 
services by sending him out, in 1692, as gov- 
ernor of Virginia, adjoining to the office at 
the same time the governorship of Mary- 
land.^ 

He exhibited here the same qualities that 
had characterized his government in New 
York and New England ; intelligent aptitude 



SIB EDMUND ANDEOS. 147 

for business, love of regularity and order, 
zeal for honest administration, and conse- 
quently some degree of severity upon offend- 
ers against the navigation laws who were 
often men of good birth and position, and last, 
though not least, a great dislike of the inter- 
ference of meddling ecclesiastics with matters 
of state. He reduced the records of the pro- 
vince to order, finding that they had been 
seriously neglected ; and when the State 
House was burned, he provided a building 
for them, and had them again carefully 
sorted and registered. He encouraged the 
introduction of manufactures and the plant- 
ing of cotton, and established a legal size for 
the tobacco cask, an act which protected the 
merchants from arbitrary plundering by 
custom house officials in England, but which 
was used by his enemies to form the basis 
of an accusation of defrauding the revenue. 
He was on the best of terms with the prom- 
inent men of the Dominion, and he left be- 
hind him a pleasant memory in Virginia 
among the laity, and among those of the 
clergy who were not under the influence of 
Commissary Blair. The quarrel with Blair 
was an unfortunate one, for, though meddle- 
some and dogmatic, he was working for the 
higher interests of the colony ; but the evi- 



148 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

dence he himself supplies of the temper of 
his proceedings explains Sir Edmund's anti- 
pathy. 

He was recalled to England in 1698, and 
was worsted in his contest with Blair, having 
been unfortunate enough to bring upon him- 
self the resentment of the Bishop of London. 
The record of the trial is preserved at Lam- 
beth, and has been printed in this country, 
and a perusal of it will convince most readers 
that Sir Edmund received very hard usage, 
and might have complained, in the words of 
the lawyer who was defeated in a contest 
with Laud, that he had been ' ' choked by a 
pair of lawn-sleeves."*^ 

The rest of his life was passed at home. 
The government still showed their confidence 
in him by appointing him the Governor of 
Guernsey.*^ He lived quietly, passing a 
peaceful old age, and died in February, 1Y13-4 
at the age of seventy-six. His continued 
interest in the welfare of the colonies, in the 
service of which he had passed so many years, 
is evidenced by the fact that his name appears 
among the members of the Society for the 
Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. *^ 

Eemoved from the prejudices of his own 
day and generation, and regarded in the im- 
partial light of history. Sir Edmund Andros 



SIR EDMUND ANDROS. 149 

appears not as the cruel persecutor that he 
seemed to the Mathers and the Sewalls, nor 
as the envious Sanballat that Blair's fervent 
Scotch imagination pictured him, but as a 
single-hearted, loyal English gentleman, of 
the best type of those cavaliers, devoted to 
church and king, who, in their horror at the 
results of puritanism and liberalism in Eng- 
land, were willing to sacrifice if necessary 
some degree of personal liberty in order to 
secure the dominion of law.^^ 

Judging from what we know of him, we 
should have looked to see him, had he been 
in England instead of in America at the 
time of the Eevolution, by the side of many 
fellow Tories maintaining the liberties and 
the religion of his country. In America, 
far from the scene of conflict, his duty was 
to support the government of the king ; but 
the claim of the colonists that, by a^rresting 
him, they prevented him from ^^ making an 
Ireland of America," is disproved by his im- 
mediate and loyal acceptance of the results 
of the Eevolution, and by the confidence 
the new government immediately reposed in 
him.^ 

The French authorities in Canada, who 
were in a position to judge his character 
correctly, have left on record their opinion 



150 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

that it was hopeless to expect assistance 
from him against his countrymen in the 
struggle between the two nations that broke 
out after the abdication of James II. The 
Chevalier de Callieres, Governor of Montreal, 
wrote to the Marquis de Seignelay as follows ; 

"Chevalier Andros, now Governor-General of 
New England and New York, having already de- 
clared in his letter to M. de Denonville that he 
took all the Iroquois under his protection as sub- 
jects of the crown of England, and having prevented 
them returning to M. de Denonville to make peace 
with us, there is no longer reason to hope for its 
conclusion through the English, nor for the aliena- 
tion of the Iroquois from the close union which 
exist with those (the English), in consequence of 
the great advantage they derive from thence, the 
like to which we cannot offer for divers reasons. 

" Chevalier Andros is a Protestant as well as the 
whole English colony, so that there is no reason to 
hope that he will remain faithful to the King of 
England (James II.), and we must expect that he 
will not only urge the Iroquois to continue the war 
against us, but that he will also add Enghshmen to 
them to lead them and seize the posts of Niagara, 
Michillimackinac and others proper to render him 
master of aU the Indians, our allies, according to 
the project they have long since formed, and which 
they were beginning to execute when we declared 
war against the Iroquois, and when we captured 
seventy Englishmen who were going to take pos- 



SIR EDMUND ANDBOS. 151 

session of Michillimackinac, one of the most im- 
portant posts of Canada." ^^ 

It is gratifying to notice that at last his 
character and services are beginning to be 
better appreciated in the provinces over 
which he ruled ; and we may hope that in 
time the Andros of partisan history will give 
place, even in the popular narratives of 
colonial affairs, to the Andros that really 
existed, stern and proud and uncompromis- 
ing, it is true, but honest, upright, and just ; 
a loyal servant of the crown, and a friend to 
the best interests of the people whom he 
governed. 



152 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 



NOTES. 

^ The principal authority for the facts of Andros's life 
before he became governor of the Duke of York's 
province is a biographical sketch in the History of Guern- 
sey, by Jonathan Duncan, Esq., London, 1841, written 
by the late Mr. Thomas Andros of Guernsey, who died 
in 1853. This sketch was copied in N. Y. Colonial Docu- 
ments, ii. 740, and has been used by W. H. Whitmore in 
his memoir of Sir Edmund Andros, in the first volume 
of TJie Andros Tracts. Mr. Whitmore has added to the 
sketch some few additional facts collected from a pedi- 
gree at the Heralds' Office and from private family 
papers. His memoir is the most convenient, as it is the 
fullest and most accurate, life of Andros that has 
appeared. The History of Guernsey, by Ferdinand Brock 
Tupper, contains a few additional facts in regard to him, 
but of trifling importance. Vide pp. 367, 377, 392. See 
also Chronicles of Castle Cornet by the same author. 

2 Duncan, History of Guernsey, p. 89. 

^Memoir of the Life of the late Reverend Increase 
Mather, D. D., London, 1725, pp. 10-12. 

^ Whitmore, Andros Tracts, I. ix. Duncan, p. 106. 

^ Pedigree, in Andros Tracts, I. vi. Duncan, p. 588. 
From Calendar of State Papers, Am. and W. Indies, we 
learn that Andros saw service in the West Indies, being 
major in a regiment of foot, commanded by Sir Tobias 
Bridge, which left England in March, 1667, and arrived 
in Barbadoes in April. He returned to England in 1668, 
as bearer of despatches and letters to the government, 
and was in England in September of that year. Whether 



SIR EDMUND ANDROS. 153 

he returned to Barbadoes is not evident, but he was in 
England in Jan., 1671, and throughout the year. The 
regiment was disbanded and four companies sent to Eng- 
land, arriving there Oct. 5, 1671, and were incorporated 
in the new dragoon regiment being raised for Prince 
Rupert, to which Andros received his commission Sept. 
14, 1671. This chronology is irreconcilable with that 
given in the pedigree or by Duncan. 

* For relations of Lord Cra,ven and Elizabeth, see Miss 
Benger's Memoir of the Queen of Bohemia. 

'' Duncan, p. 588. Calendar of State Papers, America 
and the West Indies (1661-1668), 1427, 1436, 1439, 1476, 
1760, 1761, 1762, 1824, 1839, (1669-1674), 394, 545. 

*^ Duncan, pp. 588-89. America and W. Indies (1669- 
1674), 554, 559, 625, 639, 791. Mackinnon, Origin and 
Services of the Coldstream Guards, i. 185. 

^Tupper, History of Guernsey, 2d Ed., London, 1876. 
He says (p. 392) : "Edmund Andros had succeeded his 
father as bailiff (bailli) in 1674, with power to nominate 
a lieutenant during his long non-residence ; he was also 
a colonel of dragoons, and after his return from his 
successive North American governments, he was con- 
stituted lieutenant-governor of Guernsey by Queen Anne, 
who dispensed with his executing the office of baihff 
and accepted Eleazar Le Marchant as lieutenant-bailiff." 
Apparently he had some trouble at first from the gover- 
nor of the island, Christopher, Lord Hatton, for we find 
(p. 377) a royal order sustaining Andros, and forbidding 
Lord Hatton to disturb him in the office of bailiff. 

10 iV. Y. Col. Doc, iii. 215. The boundaries stated in 
this Commission are as follows : " All that part of 
ye Maine Land of New England beginning at a certaine 
place called or knowne by ye name of St. Croix next 
adjoyneing to new Scotland in America and from thence 
along ye sea Coast unto a certaine place called Pemaquin 
or Pemaquid and soe up the River thereof to ye furthest 



1 54 ESS A YS IN AMERICAN HISTOB T. 

head of the same, as it tendeth northwards and extend- 
ing from thence to the River Kinebequi and soe upwards 
by ye shortest course to ye river Canada northwards. 
And also all that Island or Islands comonly called or 
knowne by ye several names of Matowacks or Long 
Island scituate lying and being towards ye West of Cape 
Codd and ye Narrow Higansetts abutting upon ye maine 
land betweene ye two rivers there called or knowne by 
ye severall names of Conecticut and Hudsons River 
together also wth ye said river caUed Hudsons River and 
all ye land from ye West side of Conecticut River to 
ye East side of Delaware Bay, and also all those severall 
Islands called or knowne by ye name of Martine 
mynyards and Nantukes otherwise Nantukett, together 
with all the lands islands soiles rivers harbours mines 
mineralls quarryes woods marshes waters lakes fishings 
hawking hunting and fowling and all royaltyes and 
profitts comodityes and hereditaments to the said several 
islands lands and premisses, belonging and apperteyning 
with their and every of their appurtenancies." 

" For Andres's own account of the first three years of 
his administration, see N. Y. Col. Doc, iii. 254-257. For 
the surrender of New York, Documentary History of 
New York, iii. 43 ; Andros's report on state of the 
province, i. 60. 

^2 That this was recognized by men qualified to judge, 
vide letter from Lieutenant-Colonel Talcott to Andros, 
Connecticut Colonial Records (1678-89), p. 399 ; vide also 
Doc. Hist. N. Y., i. 99; Conn. Col. Rec. (1665-78), pp. 397, 
404, 461, 492. For Andros's own official report of the 
assistance he rendered New England in Philips's war, see 
N. Y. Col. Doc, iii, 264, 265. For remarks upon the con- 
trasted Indian policies, see Brodhead, Hist. New York, 
ii. 281-290. 

13 Conn. Col. Rec (1678-89), p. 283. N. Y. Col. Doc, 
iii. 236. 



SIR EDMUND ANDROS. 155 

1* Conn. Col Rec. (1665-78), pp. 260, 334, 335, 339-43, 
578-86. N. Y. Col. Doe., iii. 254. 

Governor Dongan's jealousy of Andros makes his 
statement of Andros's intentions ten years before question- 
able authority, especially when it is remembered that at 
the time he made the statement he was busily engaged 
in trying to persuade the people of Connecticut to ask 
to be annexed to New York, rather than to Massachusetts 
under Andros. Under these circumstances, one cannot 
help suspecting his testimony as to memoranda left 
behind by Andros, who was one of the most cautious and 
methodical of men. N. Y. Col. Dog. , iii. 415. If Andros 
intended to surprise the post, he certainly was very ill- 
judged to send notice of his claim beforehand. For the 
best account of these proceedings, see Brodhead, Hist. 
ofN. F.,ii. 284-286. 

15 Brodhead, Hist, of Neiv York, ii. 303-306. Netv Jersey 
Archives, i. 156-347. 

i« Conn. Col. Records (1678-89), 283-285. 

^'Mass. Rec, iv. (2), 359-361. Brodhead, History of 
Neiv York, ii. 127. 

'^N. Y. Col. Doc, iii. 257 ff. 

19 iV. Y. Col. Doc, iii. 254, 258, 259, 266, 267. See also 
Randolph's report in the same vol. 242. Hutchinson, 
OoZL, 476, 490. Brodhead, ii. 290. Mathev's Brief His- 
tory of the War, 117, 129, 254. 

20 iV. F. Col. Doc, iii. 264, 265. 

21 iV. Y. Col. Doc, iii. 235, 256. 
22 iV. Y. Col. Doc, iii. 260-265. 

23 iV^. Y. Col. Doc, 279-284, 302-308. For Andi-os's 
answer, 308-313. 
24 iV. Y. Col. Doc, iii. 314-316. 

25 Duncan, 589. N. Y. Col. Doc, ii. 741. Hutchinson, 
Coll., 542. 

26 Whitmore, Andi^os Tracts, I. xlix.. Note D. "In an 
old pedigree written about A. D. 1687 by Charles Andros 



156 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

uncle of the governor, and still preserved in the family, 
we find : 

' The 13th April 1683, the King, Charles II gave the 
charge of Gentleman in ordinary of his privy chamber ' 
to Sir Edmund, and 'the 6th day of the month of June 
1685, the King, James II. gave a Commission to the 
above Sir Edmund Andros to command a troop of 
Cavalry to go against the rebels in England.' This refers 
of course to Monmouth's Rebellion. ' In August, 1685, 
he was made Lieut. -Colonel of Lord Scarsdale's cavahy.' " 

" Palfrey, Hist, of New England, iii. 319, 334. In 
1678, Andros had written Blathwayt that there would 
be danger of Indian difficulties, " so long as each petty 
colony hath or assumes absolute power of peace and war, 
which cannot be managed by such popular governments 
as was evident in the late Indian wars in New England." 
N. Y. Col. Doc, iu. 271. Earlier still. Gov. Winslow of 
Plymouth had told Randolph that New England could 
never flourish until its several colonies were placed under 
his Majesty's immediate government (Hutchinson, Coll., 
p. 509), and Randolph had urged the matter upon the 
council in his celebrated report. Hutch., Coll., 477-503. 

28 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 4th Series, vol. ii. 

29 Rhode Island Col. Records, iii. 175-197. Chalmers, 
Political Annals, 278. 

30 Whitmore, I. xxvii. Cambridge Almanac, 1687. 

3^ Whitmore, I. xxvii. Goldwin Smith, in his recent 
work on Tlie United States, seems to suppose that this oc- 
curred in New Hampshire. 

32 Conn. Col. Records (1678-89), 376-378. 

33 Conn. Col. Records (1678-89), 389. 

*^ Chalmers, Political Annals, 297, 298. General His- 
toid of Connecticut, by a Gentleman of the Province 
(Rev. S. Peters, D. D.), London, 1781. 

Peters's account is as follows : " They resigned it (the 
charter) in proj^ria forma, into the hands of Sii' Edmund 



SIR EDMUND ANDBOS. 157 

Andros at Hertford, in October, 1687, and were annexed 
to the Mass. Bay colony, in preference to New York, ac- 
cording to royal promise and their own petition. But 
the very night of the surrender of it, Samuel Wadsworth 
of Hertford, with the assistance of a mob, violently broke 
into the apartments of Sir Edmund, regained, carried off 
and hid the charter in the hollow of an elm, and in 1689, 
news arriving of an insurrection and overthrow of An- 
dros at Boston, Robert Treat, who had been elected in 
1687, was declared by the mob still to be Governor of 
Connecticut. He darmgly summoned his old Assembly, 
who being convened, voted the charter to be vahd in law, 
und that it could not be vacated by any power, without 
the consent of the General Assembly. They then voted, 
that Samuel Wadsworth should bring forth the charter ; 
which he did in a solemn procession, attended by the 
High Sheriff, and delivered it to the Governor. The 
General Assembly voted their thanks to Wadsworth, and 
twenty shillings as a reward for stealing and hiding their 
charter in an elm." 

35 Conn. Col. Rec. (1678-89), 248. 

2^ Bulkeley, Gershom, Will and Doom, in Conn. Col. 
Rec. (1678-89), 390, 391. 

" Conn. Col. Rec. (1678-89), 398 note, 404 note. 

38 Trumbull, History of Connecticut, i. 371-375. 

39 For Andres's own account of the transaction, see N. 
Y. Col. Doc, iii. 722-726. Andros Tracts, iii. 20, 21. 
R. I. Col. Rec, iii. 281. 

^^ It is interesting to notice in this regard, that the chief 
complaint Increase Mather made against Andros, in his 
interview with James II. , was that he did not sufficiently 
observe the king's Declaration of Indulgence. Mather, 
Cotton, D. D., Life of Increase Blather, p. 41, London 
1725. Parentator, pp. 109-116 (reprinted in part in An- 
dros Tracts, iii. 121-187). Cf. Randolph's account in 
N. Y. Col. Doc. , iii. 578 ; also, Chalmers, Pol. Annals, 426, 



158 ESSA YS IN AMERICAN RISTOR Y. 

^1 Whitmore, Andros Tracts, i. 1-10. Hutchinson, i. 
374-377. N. F. Col. Doc, iii. 722, 726. Palfrey, History 
of New England, iii. ch. xiv. , xv. That the revolution 
was carefully prepared and planned, see Mather, Samuel, 
Life of Cotton Mather, p. 42, and N. Y. Col. Doc., iii. 587, 
588 (Deposition of Philip French), New York, 1689. 

"The above said Mr. Philip French further declared 
that being on board the ' Prudent Sarah,' Benjamin Gil- 
lem Mastr coming from England in company with Sir 
Willm Fips, heard him speak severall times the words 
following to this effect, ' that he did say the first fishing 
boat he mett he would hire and goe privately ashore and 
rise a company without beating of drum, and that he 
would take the packets sent to Sr Edmund and not deliver 
them to him, except he appeared in Councill, and there 
would secure him.' 

* ' That about the same time upon the said voyage hee 
heard Sr Willm Fips say that he appeared before the 
Lords, and one of them starting up asked him whether 
they would stand by the rights of their Charter, or for 
the abuses they had received from Sir Edmund Andros ; 
it was answered, by the right of their charter. 

*' And about the same time this Deponant heard him 
say, that they (which this Deponant supposes were the 
Lords or the Comons assembled in Parliament) told him, 
that if they did give them trouble to hang Sir Edmund, 
they deserved noe funds." 

42 Conn. Col. Rec. (1678-89), 250, 455-460. 

43 N. Y. Col. Doc, iii. 723. Whitmore, Andros Tracts, 
iii. 22, 23, 41-43 (for his escape and capture, 95-102). 

•" Hutchinson, i. 394. 

45 Beverly, History of Virginia, i. 37. C. W. (Charles 
WoUey), A. M., A Two Years' Journal in New York. 
For an unfavorable account, CoZZ. Mass. Hist. Soc, v. 
124-166, " An Account of the Present State and Govern- 
ment of Virginia.'' The Sainsbury Papers, in the State 



SIB EDMUND AND R OS. 159 

Library at Richmond, Va. , are transcripts and abstracts 
from the London originals, of all official papers of this 
period, relating to Virginia, and an examination of them 
made in 1892, through the kindness of the State Librarian, 
gave strong corroboration of the view of Andros's ad- 
ministration presented by WoUey and Beverly, and pre- 
sented Blair and his friends in a less amiable light than 
they have presented themselves. Cf. Meade, Old Churches 
and Families of Virginia, i. 107, 108. Perry, History of 
the American Episcopal Church, vol. i. chapter vii. 

*^ Perry, Historical Collections of the American Colo- 
nial Church : Virginia, 

47 Whitmore, I. xxxiv. Duncan, 130, 131, 589. " In 
1704, under Queen Anne, he was extraordinarily distin- 
guished by having the lieutenant-governorship of Guern- 
sey bestowed on him, whilst he also continued bailiff, his 
duties, as such, being dispensed with for the time, he 
having power given to him to appoint his Heutenant- 
bailiff, who was likewise authorized to name a deputy." 

48 Whitmore, I. xxxv. 

49 Duncan, 589. " Sir Edmund was for many years at 
the head of a mixed and adventurous population, in 
newly settled and important colonies, distant from the 
mother country, a station at all time arduous, but im- 
measurably so in the age of revolutions in which he lived, 
when the institutions longest estabhshed were not exempt 
from the common jeopardy, and unusual energy was 
called for in all, wherever situated, by whom the royal 
authority was to be asserted. He resolutely encountered 
the duties and responsibilities of his high office through- 
out the long course of liis career, and was successful in 
resisting, in his miUtary as well as in his civil capacity, 
the intrigues and hostilities of the neighboring French 
and Indians, to which he was continually exposed. By 
some of the chroniclers of the period, who wrote, doubtless, 
not uninfluenced by its partisanship, he has been repre- 



160 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

sented, in his earlier government under James the Second, 
as an abettor of tyranny ; but by others of them, appear- 
ing to have possessed the best means of judging of the 
circumstances under which he acted, his conduct has 
been liberally estimated. His later administration, under 
WilUam the Third, is allowed to have been irreproach- 
able. All the colonies advanced greatly in improvement 
wiiilst under his charge ; and the fact that he was dis- 
tinguished by the marked approval and successive ap- 
pointments of his several sovereigns, after, no less than 
before, the Revolution, cannot but be interpreted as the 
strongest testimonial in his favor, and highly to the honor 
of his reputation." 

Chalmers remarks (Political An7ials, i. 422) : " The 
charges of greatest magnitude were not the faults of the 
governor, but of the constitution; the smaller accusa- 
tions arose from actions directly contrary to his instruc- 
tions. Did he act contrary to them and to his commis- 
sion, he had been the most faithless of servants, and most 
criminal of men. But he did not. For, when the agents 
of the province impeached him before William, they 
accused him not of acting inconsistent with either, but 
of having exercised an authority unconstitutional and 
tyrannous. His conduct was approved of by James ; 
and he was again appointed a colonial governor by Wil- 
liam, because he equally appeared to him worthy of trust. 
Unhappily oppressed by a real tyranny, the colonists of 
those days beheld every action with diseased eyes, and 
their distempers have descended in a great measure to 
their historians, who have retailed political fictions as 
indubitable truths." And again : " What a spectacle does 
the administration of Andros hold up to mankind for 
their instruction ; under a form of government, plainly 
arbitrary and tyrannous, more real liberty was actually 
enjoyed than under the boasted system, which appeared 
so fair." 

60 Doc. Hist. ofN. Y., i. 179. 



IV. 
THE LOYALISTS. 

The opportunity of uniting together the 
colonies was lost when the government of 
England, under William and Mary, condoned 
the rebellion in Massachusetts, and allowed 
Connecticut and Rhode Island to resume 
their charters. From that time onward, 
union under the royal authority was im- 
possible, even in the face of the pressing 
dangers of the French and Indian wars, to 
which for over sixty years the colonies were 
almost continuously exposed. Futile at- 
tempts were made, but in face of such a 
triumph of individualism nothing could be 
accomplished. When the conference at 
Albany, in 1754, put forth a plan of federa- 
tion, drawn up by Benjamin Franklin and 
studiously moderate in its provisions, it was 
rejected with indignation by the colonies, as 
tending to servitude, and by the authorities 

in England, as incurably democratic.^ Yet 

161 



162 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTOBY, 

the attempt that had been made had, at 
least, one result : it had created what we 
may call an imperial party, the members of 
which were devotedly attached to the con- 
nection with Great Britain, and opposed to 
that narrow spirit so prevalent in the col- 
onies, which esteemed nothing as of value 
in comparison with their local customs and 
local privileges. This party grew strong in 
New York, where the extravagances of Leis- 
ler's insurrection had called for stern chas- 
tisement, and was also well represented in 
New England. The new charter of Massa- 
chusetts, which gave it a governor appointed 
by the crown, while preserving its Assembly 
and its town organizations, had tended to 
encourage and develop, even in that fierce 
democracy, those elements of a conservative 
party which had been called into existence 
some years before by the disloyalty and tyr- 
anny of the ecclesiastical oligarchy. Thus, 
side by side with a group of men who were 
constantly regretting their lost autonomy, 
and looking with suspicion and prejudice at 
every action of the royal authorities, there 
arose this other group of those who con- 
stantly dwelt upon, and frequently exagger- 
ated, the advantages they derived from their 
connection with the mother country. In Con- 



THE LOYALISTS. 163 

necticut there was a strong minority that 
had opposed the re-assumption of the charter 
after the overthrow of Andros ; and in all 
the royal provinces an official class was grad- 
ually growing up, that was naturally impe- 
rial rather than local in its sympathies. The 
Church of England, also, had at last waked 
up to a sense of the spiritual needs of its 
children beyond the seas, and by means of 
the Society for the Propagation of the Gos- 
pel was sending devoted and self-sacrificing 
missionaries to labor among the people of 
the colonies.^ The influence of this tended 
inevitably to maintain and strengthen the 
feeling of national unity in those of the 
colonists who came under the ministra- 
tions of the missionaries. In the colony of 
Connecticut, especial strength was given 
to this movement by an unexpected reli- 
gious revolution, in which several of the 
prominent ministers of the ruling congre- 
gational body, and many of the best of the 
laity, forsook their separatist principles and 
returned to the historic church of the old 
home.^ The wars with the French, in which 
colonists fought side by side with regulars, 
in a contest of national significance, tended 
upon the whole to intensify the sense of im- 
perial unity ; although there can be no 



164 i:SSAY8 IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

doubt that the British officers generally, by 
their contemptuous speeches and by their in- 
solent manner towards the colonials whom 
they affected to despise, prepared the way for 
the eventual rupture of sentiment between 
the colonies and England.* 

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that 
neither navigation laws nor the Stamp Act 
nor parliamentary interference had as much 
to do in alienating the affections of Ameri- 
cans from the mother country, as had the 
ill-mannered impertinence of the British offi- 
cers and the royal officials. This insolence, 
when joined to Grenville's bungling and ex- 
asperating attempt to extend imperial taxa- 
tion to the colonies, had the result of uniting 
for a time nearly all Americans in opposition 
to the measures proposed by the advisers of 
the king, and enabled them to win a great 
constitutional victory over the attempt to im- 
pose stamp duties upon them. The divi- 
sion into two distinct parties, though as has 
been pointed out the groups had been grad- 
ually forming and drawing apart from one 
another, did not really come into definite ex- 
istence until the further impolitic measures 
of successive ministries had strengthened 
the hands of those who were traditionally 
disposed to resist the authority of England. 



THE LOYALISTS. 165 

It is very hard for us to put ourselves in 
the place of men of a century ago, and to 
think their thoughts and surround ourselves 
in imagination with their environment ; we 
naturally carry back much of the nineteenth 
century into the eighteenth. We know the 
America of to-day, a vigorous, healthy, pros- 
perous, mighty nation, reaching from sea to 
sea, filled with a busy people, adorned with 
the achievements of a hundred years, hal- 
lowed by many sacred memories. The 
American flag has floated proudly through 
the smoke of battle in every quarter of the 
world, and for a hundred years men have 
seen in it the symbol of a country and a 
fatherland. It is difficult for us to realize 
that, before 1776, these influences had no 
power ; there was then no nation, no coun- 
try, no fatherland, no flag, nothing but a 
number of not over-prosperous colonies, with 
but little love or liking for one another. 
Even the strongest Americans did not vent- 
ure to use the word nation or its deriva- 
tives, but called their congress, even after 
the formal separation from England, simply 
the Continental Congress. The very consid- 
erations which show us how wonderful and 
even sublime were the faith and the devotion 
of the leaders of the American revolution, 



166 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

will also show us how natural it was, how 
almost inevitable it was, that other men, 
whose connection with England was closer 
and more intimate, whose habits of mind 
were conservative rather than progressive, 
who had been brought up to fear God and 
honor the king and to think more about 
their duties than about their rights, should 
cling with devotion to the cause of the 
mother-country and condemn the revolu- 
tion as a '^parricidal rebellion." 

Besides this highest motive, which influ- 
enced the best and the purest-minded among 
the opponents of colonial separation, there 
were undoubtedly other motives of lower 
character, which affected some men in their 
decision, and disposed them to loyalty. The 
political power of all the colonies had been 
largely in the hands of those who were 
known as the '^ better sort," usually gentle- 
men of good family, rich and well educated ; 
in some of the colonies official position had 
been treated as the special prerogative of a 
few distinguished families who contended 
with one another for its possession ; none of 
the colonies, not even Connecticut, was dem- 
ocratic as we understand the term to-day. 
In some cases the revolutionary movements 
and impulses came from a class which wished 



THE LOYALISTS. 167 

to occupy public positions from which they 
had been excluded, and in others from dis- 
satisfied and discontented men of birth and 
family, who were tired of being out in the 
cold, while their rivals were enjoying the 
pleasures and emoluments of office.^ Thus 
in New York, the history of the revolution is 
closely bound up with the family feuds of the 
De Lanceys on the one side with the Living- 
stons on the other. In Massachusetts, the 
quarrel between Governor Bernard and the 
Otises did much to increase the patriotism of 
the latter family ; and until the very break- 
ing out of hostilities, the contest within the 
colony was between a majority of the well- 
to-do merchants and lawyers of Boston on 
the one side, and the least stable elements of 
the populace, under the leadership of one of 
the most skilful of political agitators, Sam- 
uel Adams, upon the other. 

There is no doubt that, in Massachusetts 
at least, most well-to-do persons considered 
the agitation at first to be merely political, 
the usual device of the ^^outs" against the 
^^ins"; they laughed at the loud talk of 
some of the orators, and considered that it 
was put on for effect.^ When, in addition 
to this, the cause of American rights was 
disgraced, year after year, by riots, murder, 



168 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN BISTORY. 

arson, and sedition, those who were entrusted 
with the responsibilities of office, however 
much they sympathized with the abstract 
principles that were upheld by the popular 
leaders, were prejudiced against the concrete 
application of them.^ We should also re- 
member that, down to the time of the battle 
of Bunker Hill, if not later, all parties united 
in the most loyal and devoted language. 
The rights that were claimed were not the 
rights of Man, but of " natural-born subjects 
of the king of G-reat Britain " ; the king was 
always described as ^^ the best and most gen- 
erous of monarchs," and separation was 
never mentioned as a possibility in any pub- 
lic utterance. War was looked forward to 
by some of the most eager as a means of 
bringing the ministry to terms, or as an un- 
avoidable necessity if the unconstitutional 
taxation was persisted in ; but, up to the very 
last, most men agreed with Eichard Henry 
Lee, who said to Adams, as they parted after 
the first Continental Congress in 17 Y4 : "All 
offensive acts will be repealed — Britain will 
give up her foolish project."^ 

When the most ardent American patriots 
used this language, and used it sincerely, it 
is not remarkable that those who formed the 
opposing political party, who were conserva- 



THE LOYALISTS. 169 

tive when these were the radicals, should 
have felt that they were bound by their duty 
to their king and country, or that they 
should also have felt that the disorderly ac- 
tions and the factious attitude of some of the 
extreme patriots in Massachusetts and else- 
where were simply seditious. These convic- 
tions were undoubtedly strengthened by the 
abominable treatment which many of them 
personally received. They were not apt to 
look with greater favor upon a cause whose 
votaries had tried to recommend it to their 
liking by breaking their windows, plunder- 
ing their houses, constantly insulting them, 
their wives and their daughters, to say 
nothing of tarring and feathering them, or 
of burning them in e^gj. The penal meas- 
ures imposed by the Parliament upon the 
town of Boston and the colony of Massachu- 
setts had been brought upon themselves by the 
so-called patriots. One rather wonders at 
the slowness and mildness of the British gov- 
ernment, and at their miserable inefficiency, 
than at any repressive measures that they 
undertook. They deserved to lose the col- 
onies for their invincible stupidity, which led 
them from one blunder into another ; they 
irritated when they ought either to have 
crushed or conciliated ; they tried half-meas- 



170 ESS A YS IN AMERICAN HISTOR F. 

ures when vigorous action was necessary ; 
they persisted in affronting all the other colo- 
nies while they failed in chastising sedition 
in Massachusetts. The result was that they 
drove many men, who were loyal subjects of 
Great Britain in 1774, into revolution in 
1776, while they allowed the rebels of Massa- 
chusetts to wreak vengeance at their will 
upon those who had been faithful in their 
allegiance to their king.^ 

Besides those who were loyalists from 
conviction and temperament and those who 
were almost unavoidably so from the political 
position they occupied, there were also men 
who were loyalists from the profit it gave 
them. Such were the holders of the minor 
offices in the gift of the royal governors, the 
rich merchants who represented English 
trading-houses, and dreaded war and disturb- 
ance. There were others whose chief desire 
was to be upon the winning side, who were 
unable to conceive the possibility of the defeat 
of the English government by a handful of 
insurgent colonists, and some also who, from 
local or personal dislikes or prejudices, or 
from love of opposition, took a different 
side from that which was taken by their 
neighbors. It is probable, however, that there 
were hardly any whose motives v^ere not to 



THE LOYALISTS. 171 

some extent mixed ; few on the one hand so 
disinterested or so devoted as not to be moved 
in some degree by self-interest or prejudice, 
few on the other hand whose nature was so 
biassed by prejudice or so sordid with love 
of place or pension as not also to be moved 
by the higher impulse of fidelity. 

Loyalty is hard to define ; it is one of 
those virtues which appeals not so much to 
the head as to the heart. Its critics accuse 
it of being irrational and illogical, as being 
based upon sentiment rather than upon con- 
viction. Yet, in spite of logic and reason, 
or rather, on account of its pro founder logic 
and higher reason, loyalty will hold its own, 
and strike an answering chord of admiration 
in the human heart as long as men appreciate 
disinterested virtue. It may be classed with 
the other unreasoned qualities that men yet 
esteem, with faith and truth, honor and 
courage, decency and chastity. It may be 
a man's intellectual duty to follow the 
dictates of his understanding and to act 
upon his temporary convictions, whatever 
pain the action cost ; nevertheless, the man 
whom we respect and follow is not the man 
who is always changing, who is easily in- 
fluenced by argument, but the man who 
abides by certain fixed principles, and re- 



172 ESS A YS IN AMERICAN HISTOR Y. 

fuses to desert them, unless it can be shown 
him that beyond all chance of mistake they 
are wrong and misleading. 

It has been sometimes asserted that loyalty 
can only be felt towards a personal ruler or 
a dynasty ; such a restriction of the term 
is entirely unfounded. It is, by its very 
derivation, devotion to that which is legal 
and established. Legality and Loyalty are 
etymologically the same. No one can doubt 
that there is a high and noble devotion to 
right and justice which is as admirable and 
as strong as a devotion to any person. It 
is a more refined sentiment and appeals to 
a higher moral sense than does the simple 
fidelity to a person, beautiful and touching 
though such devotion be. The loyalty of men 
who, like the younger Verneys, espoused the 
side of the Parliament in its struggle with 
Charles the First, was as true and real a 
sentiment, though its character was imper- 
sonal, as was that of the stout Sir Edmund, 
who, though '^he liked not the quarrel," 
followed the king, because '' he had eaten his 
bread too long to turn against him in his 
necessity. " There could hardly be a finer ex- 
ample of this loyalty to an idea than was 
shown by those Americans who condemned 
the stupid errors of the king and his advisers, 



THE LOYALISTS. 173 

and realized fully the danger to liberty in 
the system of government that George the 
Third was attempting to carry out in England 
and in America, and yet, in spite of all, re- 
mained patriotic subjects, not from affection 
but from principle, trusting to constitutional 
methods to overcome the evils which they 
felt as strongly asany of those who made 
them a justification for revolution. 

As has been shown, among those who 
adhered to the side of the mother country 
in the revolution there were men of all kinds 
and convictions. There were those who 
were loyal because they believed in the legal 
right of the Parliament to tax the colonies, 
short-sighted as the policy might be, and con- 
sidered their duty and their allegiance to be 
due to the united empire. There were those 
who adhered to the king's cause from per- 
sonal devotion to him and to his dynasty, an 
unreasonable devotion in the eyes of some, 
but certainly not as contemptible as Ameri- 
can satirists have loved to describe it. There 
were those who were by nature conservatives, 
willing to do anything sooner than change, 
governed completely by a prejudice which 
hardly deserves the noble name of loyalty, 
but still had in it an element of steadiness and 
sturdiness that redeems it from contempt. 



174 ESSAYS IJV AMERICAN HISTORY. 

There were also, undoubtedly, men who cal- 
culated the chances of victory in the strug- 
gle and espoused the side that they thought 
was likely to win ; there were those who 
were for the king from pure gregariousness, 
because some of their friends and neighbors 
were on that side ; and, finally, some who, 
from a mere love of opposition, set them- 
selves against the cause of America because 
their neighbors and townsmen favored it. 

And, as the motives which impelled men 
were different, so also their actions differed 
when the rupture came between the king and 
the colonies. Some were active favorers of 
the cause of the king, doing whatever they 
could to assist it and to injure the cause of 
their rebellious neighbors. Others sadly left 
their homes at the outbreak of the war and 
took refuge in England or in some of the 
English provinces, suffering want, anxiety, 
and despair, snubbed and despised by the in- 
sular English, compelled to hear America and 
Americans insulted, dragging along a miser- 
able existence, like that of the shades whom 
Virgil found upon the bank of the infernal 
river, not allowed to return to earth or to 
enter either Elysium or Tartarus. Others 
attempted to live in peaceful neutrality in 
America, experiencing the usual fate of neu- 



THE LOYALISTS. 175 

trals, animals like the bat neither beast nor 
bird but plundered and persecuted by both. 
Such betook themselves usually to the pro- 
tection of the British arms, and were to be 
found in the greatest numbers at or near 
the headquarters of the British generals 
in Savannah or Charlestown, Newport or 
New York. 

Some American writers have been ex- 
tremely severe upon the Americans who 
served in the royal armies ; such condemna- 
tion is certainly illogical and unjust. They 
were fighting, they might have reasoned, to 
save their country from mob rule, from the 
dominion of demagogues and traitors, and to 
preserve to it what, until then, all had agreed 
to be the greatest of blessings — the connection 
with Great Britain, the privilege and honor 
of being Englishmen, heirs of all the free 
institutions which were embodied in the 
'^ great and glorious constitution." 

If the loyalists of New York, Georgia, and 
the Carolinas reasoned in this manner, we 
cannot blame them, unless we are ready to 
maintain the proposition that the cause of 
every revolution is necessarily so sacred that 
those who do not sympathize with it should 
at least abstain from forcibly opposing it. 
The further charge is made that the worst 



176 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTOBY. 

outrages of the war were committed by 
Tories, and the ill-doings of Brant and Butler 
at Wyoming and Cherry Valley, together 
with the raids of Tryon and Arnold, are held 
up to the execration of posterity as being 
something exceptionally brutal and cruel, un- 
paralleled by any similar actions on the part 
of the Whig militia or the regular forces of 
either army, Sullivan's campaign through the 
Indian country being conveniently forgot- 
ten.^^ Impartial history will not palliate the 
barbarities that were committed by either 
party; but there can be no doubt that the Tory 
wrong-doings have been grossly exaggerated, 
or at least have been dwelt upon as dreadful 
scenes of depravity to form a background for 
the heroism and fortitude of the patriotic 
party whose misdeeds are passed over very 
lightly. The methods of the growth of popu- 
lar mythology have been the same in Amer- 
ica as elsewhere ; the gods of one party have 
become the devils of the other. The haze of 
distance has thrown a halo around the 
American leaders, softening their outlines, 
obscuring their faults, while the misdeeds of 
Tories and Hessians have grown with the 
growth of years. But it is an undoubted 
fact that there were outrages upon both sides, 
brutal officers on both sides, bad treatment 



THE LOYALISTS. 177 

of prisoners on both sides, guerilla warfare 
with all its evil concomitants on both sides, 
and in these respects the Tories were no worse 
than the Whigs. There was not much to 
choose between a Cowboy and a Skinner, 
very little difference between Major Fer- 
guson's command and that of Marion and 
Sumter. There was no more orderly or 
better-behaved troop in either army than 
Simcoe's Queen's Eangers ; ^^ possibly there 
was none on either side as bad as the mixture 
of Iroquois Indians and Tory half-breeds 
who were concerned in the massacres at 
Wyoming and Cherry Valley. 

The Americans, however, do not deserve 
any credit for abstaining from the use of In- 
dian allies. They tried very hard to make 
use of them, but without success. A few 
Englishmen in the Mohawk Valley, faithful 
to the traditions of just and honest treatment 
of the Indians, which had been inherited from 
the Dutch, had succeeded in making the Iro- 
quois regard them as friends, but everywhere 
else the Indian and the colonist were bitter 
and irreconcilable foes. The savage had long 
scores of hatred to pay, not upon the English 
nation or English army, but upon the Ameri- 
can settlers who had stolen his lands, shot 
his sons, and debauched his daughters. The 



178 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN BISTORT. 

employment of the Mohawks by the English 
was an outrage and a crying shame upon 
civilization ; but the responsibility of it lies 
directly upon the government which allowed 
it, and the commanding generals who sanc- 
tioned the expeditions, and only indirectly 
upon the men who carried out the directions 
of their superiors. ^^ It is interesting to re- 
member in this connection that the courteous 
and chivalrous Lafayette raised a troop of 
Indians to fight the British and the Tories, 
though his reputation has been saved by the 
utter and almost ludicrous failure of his 
attempt. The fact is that, as far as the 
Americans were engaged in it, the war of 
the Kevolution was a civil war, in which 
the two sides were not far different in num- 
bers or in social condition, and very much 
the same in their manners and customs. 
The loyalists contended all through the war 
that they were in a numerical majority, and 
that if they had been properly supported by 
the British forces and properly treated by 
the British generals, the war could have 
been ended in 1YY7, before the French alli- 
ance had given new hopes and new strength 
to the separatist party. ^^ 

Sabine, in his well-known work on the 
loyalists of the Eevolution, computes that 



THE L YALISTS. 179 

there were at least twenty thousand Ameri- 
cans in the military service of the king at 
one time or another during the war.^^ Other 
authorities think this estimate too high, but 
the number was extremely large. In New 
York and New Jersey it is probable that the 
opponents of separation outnumbered the 
patriot party, and the same is probably true 
of the Carolinas and Georgia. Even in New 
England, the nursery of the Revolution, the 
number was large and so formidable, in the 
opinion of the revolutionary leaders, that in 
order to suppress them they established a 
reign of terror and anticipated the famous 
^^Law of the Suspected" of the French 
Eevolution. An irresponsible tyranny was 
established of town and country committees 
at whose beck and call were the so-called 
*^ Sons of Liberty." To these committees 
was entrusted an absolute power over the 
lives and fortunes of their fellow-citizens, 
and they proceeded on principles of evidence 
that would have shocked and scandalized a 
grand inquisitor. 

Virginia and Maryland seem to have been 
the only provinces in which the body of the 
people sympathized with the projects of the 
revolutionary leaders. The few loyalists 
there were in Virginia retired to England 



180 ESS A TS IN AMERICAN HISTOR Y. 

with the last royal governor, and in Maryland 
a strong sense of local independence and local 
pride led the colony to act with unanimity 
and moderation. 

The rigorous measures adopted by the new 
governments in the Eastern States, and the 
activity of their town committees, succeeded 
in either driving out their loyalist citizens or 
reducing them to harmless inefficiency. In 
New York and New Jersey, however, they 
remained strong and active throughout the 
war ; and as long as the British forces held 
Georgia and the Carolinas, loyalty was in 
the ascendant in those states. 

The question will naturally be asked, why, 
if they were so numerous, were they not 
more successful, why did they yield to popu- 
lar violence in New England and desert the 
country while the contest was going on, why 
did they not hold the Southern States and 
keep them from joining the others in the 
Continental Congresses and in the war. In 
the first place, a negative attitude is neces- 
sarily an inactive one ; and in consequence of 
this and of the fact that they could not take 
the initiative in any action, the loyalists 
were put at a disadvantage before the 
much better organization of the patriotic 
leaders. Though these were few in number, 



THE LOYALISTS. 181 

in the South they were of the best famihes 
and of great social influence, and in the 
North they were popular agitators of long ex- 
perience. They manipulated the committee 
system so carefully that the colonies found 
themselves, before they were aware of the 
tendency of the actions of their deputies, in- 
volved in proceedings of very questionable 
legality, such as the boycotting agreement 
known as the American Association, and the 
other proceedings of the Continental Con- 
gress. ^'^ When the war began, the popula- 
tion of the three southernmost states had 
very little care, except for their own lives 
and pockets. They were, with the exception 
of a few distinguished families, descendants 
of a very low grade of settlers. Oglethorpe's 
philanthropy had left the legacy of disorder 
and inefficiency to the colony of Georgia, a 
legacy which the Empire State of the South 
has now nobly and grandly outlived. North 
Carolina had a most heterogeneous popula- 
tion, and was, perhaps, the most barbarous 
of all the colonies ; while in South Carolina 
the extremes in the social scale were most 
strongly marked, from the high-spirited 
Huguenot gentlemen to the poor whites who 
formed the bulk of the population, worse 
taught, worse fed, and worse clad than the 



1 82 ESSA rs IN AMERICAN HISTOB T. 

negro slaves. Such a population as this, 
living also in constant fear of negro insur- 
rection, was not likely to count for much on 
the one side or the other ; and we shall find, if 
we read Gates's and Greene's dispatches on 
the one side, and Eawdon's and Cornwallis's 
on the other, that the rival commanders 
agree in one thing at least — in condemning 
and despising the worthlessness of the militia 
recruited in the southern country. ^^ It was 
the utter cowardice of this militia that lost 
the battle of Camden and caused the needless 
sacrifice of the lives of the braver Continen- 
tals ; and the correspondence of the English 
general is full of instances that prove that, 
except for plundering and bushwhacking, 
there was little use to be made of the loyal- 
ists in the South. 

As to the other questions, why, when the 
loyalists were so numerous, were they not 
more successful, and why did the eastern 
loyalists yield to the violence that was offered 
them, one question nearly answers the 
other. They were not successful, because 
they had no leaders of their own stock and 
country, and because the British commanders 
blundered throughout the war with as unerr- 
ing certainty and unfailing regularity as 
the various British ministries had done from 



THE LOYALISTS. 188 

1764 to 1Y76. The game was in the hands of 
theEnghsh, if they had known how to play it, 
for the first three years of the war. Then 
Enghsh inefficiency, rather than any belief 
in the ability of the colonists to make good 
their own independence, brought about the 
French alliance ; and the war assumed from 
thenceforward a very different aspect. The 
desertion of their cause and their country by 
the many Tories who left New England for 
Grreat Britain or the loyal provinces, and the 
supineness of the men of place and position 
who attempted to preserve an attitude of 
neutrality instead of siding openly either for 
or against the king, weakened the king's 
cause in America and prevented the numbers 
of the loyalist population from counting for 
as much as they were really worth. 

The clever French diplomatist who collected 
and translated the correspondence of Lord 
George Germaine with the British generals 
and admirals, a remarkably well-informed 
critic of the military operations in America, 
states in his Preface his opinion as follows : 
^* Another thing which clearly proves that 
the affairs of the English have been badly 
conducted in America, is that the American 
loyalists alone were superior in number to 
the rebels. How, then, has it come to pass 



184 ESSAYS IN AMEBIC AN BISTORT. 

that troops double in numbers, well paid 
and wanting nothing, aided besides by a 
German army, have failed in opposing the 
partisans of liberty, who, badly paid and 
badly equipped, often lacked everything? 
Manifestly it is in the different capacity of 
the commanders that we must seek for the 
counterweight which has turned the scale in 
favor of the latter. If the English had had 
a Washington at the head of their army 
there would long since have been no more 
question of war on the American Continent. 
. . . . M. Linguet has said somewhere in 
his annals that the secretaries of the Con- 
gress were better than the secretaries of the 
English generals. The same may be said of 
the generals themselves." ^^ 

Besides being inefficient in the field, the 
British commanders alienated their friends 
and weakened the attachment of the loyal- 
ists to the cause of the king by their ex- 
tremely impolitic treatment of the American 
provinces within their occupation. The 
regular officers made no secret of their 
contempt for the colonists, and plundered 
them without mercy, making little, if any, 
distinction between loyalist or rebel, Tory or 
Whig. Judge Thomas Jones, a New Yorker 
of prominence and position, who was a de- 



THE LOYALISTS. 185 

voted loyalist and one of the number es- 
pecially singled out by name in the Act of 
Confiscation and Attainder passed by his 
native state, has left us his record of the 
way in which the British officers and officials 
exasperated rather than conciliated the 
Americans, and punished rather than re- 
warded the loyal for their attachment to the 
king and the integrity of the empire. He 
writes : ^^In 1780, part of the army went 
into winter quarters upon the westernmost 
end of the island, where they robbed, 
plundered, and pillaged the inhabitants of 
their cattle, hogs, sheep, poultry, and, in 
short, of anything they could lay their 
hands upon. It was no uncommon thing of 
an afternoon to see a farmer driving a flock 
of turkeys, geese, ducks, or dunghill fowls 
and locking them up in his cellar for secu- 
rity at night. ... It was no uncommon 
thing for a farmer, his wife and children 
to sleep in one room, while his sheep were 
bleating in the room adjoining, his hogs 
grunting in the kitchen, and the cocks crow- 
ing, hens cackling, ducks quacking, and 
geese hissing in the cellar. . . . This rob- 
bing was done by people sent to America 
to protect loyalists against the persecutions 
and depredations of rebels. To complain 



186 ESSAYS IN AMEBIC AN HISTORY. 

was needless ; the officers shared in the 
plunder." In Newtown, a Hessian soldier 
opened a butcher's shop, where he undersold 
all competitors, because while they had to 
pay for their meat he had no such outlay. 
In 1781, when the troops left Flushing, a 
resident of that place wrote, " There was not 
a four-footed animal (a few dogs excepted) 
left in Flushing, nor a wooden fence." 

We cannot wonder at the indignant words 
with which Mr. Jones closes his recital of 
this vandalism. '^If Great Britain had, 
instead of governing by military law, by 
courts of police, and courts martial, re- 
vived the civil law, opened the courts of 
justice, invested the civil magistrates with 
their full power, and convened general as- 
semblies in New York, New Jersey, Penn- 
sylvania, Ehode Island, Virginia, and in 
South and North Carolina (as well as in 
Georgia, where it produced the most salutary 
effects), as the rebels abandoned these pro- 
vinces and fled before the British arms ; and 
prevented, by severely punishing, all kinds 
of plunder, rapine, and pillage committed 
by the army, the rebellion in all probability 
would have terminated in a different manner. 
The empire would not have been disgraced 
or dishonored, nor Great Britain reduced 



THE LOYALISTS. 187 

to the necessity of asking pardon of her 
ungrateful children, acknowledging herself 
in the wrong, and granting them absolute, 
unconditional independence. But, alas ! the 
very reverse of this marked every step in 
the royal army in all its proceedings, and 
Great Britain, as well as the Independent 
States of America, feel to this day the dire 
effects of a conduct so very impolitic, so un- 
military, so unjustifiable, and so repugnant 
to the Constitution, the spirit, the honor, 
and the sentiments of Englishmen. ^^ 

And now let us inquire how the loyalists 
were treated by the new governments of the 
various states. Besides the irregular vio- 
lence to which the unfortunate loyalists 
were exposed at the hands of Sons of Liberty 
and town committeemen, they were marked 
out for punishment and plunder by the new 
state governments as they came into exist- 
ence. The State of Massachusetts proscribed 
three hundred and eight persons by name, 
whom it condemned, if ever found within 
its borders, to imprisonment and eventual 
banishment ; and if they ventured to return, 
it denounced the death penalty upon them. 
Not all of these were the wealthy merchants 
and lawyers who had offended the populace 
by their addresses to Hutchinson and Gage ; 



188 ESSAYS IN AMERICA]^ HISTORY. 

at least a fifth of the numher were from the 
middle classes of society, and some of them 
were of still humbler position. The State of 
New Hampshire, small as its population was 
at that time, banished seventy-six by name 
and confiscated twenty-eight estates. New 
York attainted and confiscated the property 
of fifty-nine persons by name, three of whom 
were women whose chief offence lay in the 
attractiveness of their estates. Pennsylvania 
summoned sixty-two persons to surrender 
themselves for trial for treason, and on their 
failing to appear they were pronounced 
attainted, and thirty-six estates were confis- 
cated. In Delaware the property of forty-six 
refugees was confiscated. In North Carolina, 
sixty-five estates were confiscated. In South 
Carolina, for the offence of attachment to 
the royal cause in different degrees of of- 
fensiveness, two hundred and fifteen persons 
were either fined twelve per cent, of their 
entire property, or deprived of it wholly, 
or banished from the country. ^^ In Ehode 
Island, death and confiscation of estate were 
the punishments provided by law for any 
person who communicated with the ministry 
or their agents, afforded supplies to their 
forces, or piloted the armed ships of the 
king ; and certain persons were pronounced 



THE LOYALISTS. 189 

by name enemies to liberty, and their pro- 
perty forfeited in consequence. In Connecti- 
cut, where the loyaHsts were very numerous 
but inchned to be quiet if they were let 
alone, these offences only involved loss of 
estate and of liberty for a term not exceed- 
ing three years ; but to speak, write, or act 
against the doings of Congress or the As- 
sembly of Connecticut was punishable by 
disqualification from office, imprisonment, 
and the disarming the offender. The estates 
of those who sought the royal fleets or land 
forces for shelter might, by law, be seized 
and confiscated. In her treatment of loyal- 
ists Connecticut showed the same shrewd 
sense that had characterized the proceedings 
of that republic from its earliest days ; and 
the result was seen in the fact that the 
loyalists, instead of being alienated, became 
after the war was over some of her best and 
most patriotic citizens. William Samuel 
Johnson, who during part of the war, at 
least, was under surveillance as a suspected 
Tory, but who when the war was over was 
one of Connecticut's delegates to the Consti- 
tutional Convention of 1787, and Seabury, 
the author of the clever and exasperating 
'' A W. Farmer " letters, who had been 
pulled through the mud by Sons of Liberty 



190 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

at New Haven, were none the less loyal 
citizens of the commonwealth and of the 
nation, and none the less respected by men 
who had differed from them, because they 
had been loyal to their convictions of duty. 
In Massachusetts, the feeling was much more 
bitter, and, in addition to the special act 
already mentioned, any person suspected of 
enmity to the Whig cause might be arrested 
under a magistrate's warrant and banished, 
unless he would swear fealty to the friends 
of liberty ; and the selectmen of towns could 
prefer in town meeting charges of political 
treachery and the individual thus accused, if 
convicted by a jury, could be sent into the 
enemy's jurisdiction. By a second special 
act the property of tvfenty-nine persons, 
*^ notorious conspirators," was confiscated; 
of these, fifteen had been '' mandamus " coun- 
cillors ; two, governors of the province ; one, 
lieutenant-governor ; one, treasurer ; one, 
secretary ; one, attorney-general ; one, chief- 
justice ; and four, commissioners of customs. 
The State of Virginia, though passing no 
special acts, passed a resolution that persons 
of a given description should be deemed and 
treated as aliens, and that their property 
should be sold and the proceeds go into 
the public treasury for future disposal. In 



THE LOYALISTS. 191 

New York, the county commissioners were 
authorized to apprehend and decide upon the 
guilt of such inhabitants as were supposed to 
hold correspondence with the enemy or who 
had committed some other specified acts, and 
might punish those whom they adjudged to 
be guilty with imprisonment for three months 
or banishment for seven years. Persons 
opposed to liberty and independence were 
prohibited from the practice of law in the 
courts ; and any parent whose sons went off 
and adhered to the enemy was subject to a 
tax of ninepence in the pound value of such 
parent's estate for each and every such son. 

The Congress naturally left such matters 
largely to the individual states, but neverthe- 
less passed a resolution subjecting to martial 
law and death all who should furnish pro- 
visions, etc., to the British army in New 
Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, and re- 
solved that all loyalists taken in arms should 
be sent to the states to which they belonged, 
there to be dealt with as traitors. ^^ 

In regard to this subject of legal attainder 
and exile, Mr. Sabine remarks very moder- 
ately and sensibly : '^ Nor is it believed that 
either the banishment, or the confiscation 
laws, as they stood, were more expedient 
than just. The latter did little towards 



192 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

relieving the public necessities, and served 
only to create a disposition for rapacity, and 
to increase the wealth of favored individuals. 
Had the estates, which were seized and sold, 
been judiciously or honestly managed, a 
considerable sum would have found its way 
to the treasury ; but, as it was, the amount 
was inconsiderable, some of the wisest and 
purest Whigs of the time hung their heads 
in shame, because of the passage of measures 
so unjustifiable, and never ceased to speak 
of them in terms of severe reprobation. Mr. 
Jay's disgust was unconquerable, and he 
never would purchase any property that had 
been forfeited under the Confiscation Act of 
New York. "21 

Curwen, a Salem loyalist who was allowed 
to return after the war, writes in terms 
that, though exaggerated, yet describe the 
result upon public morals of the confisca- 
tions : 

''So infamously knavish has been the con- 
duct of the commissioners, that though 
frequent attempts have been made to bring 
them to justice, and respond for the produce 
of the funds resting in their hands, so 
numerous are the defaulters in that august 
body, the General Court, that all efforts have 
hitherto proved in vain. Not twopence in 



THE LOYALISTS. 193 

the pound have arrived to the public treasury 
of all the confiscations." ^^ 

It only now remains to notice the treatment 
the unfortunate loyalists received from their 
friends in England and the manner in which 
the British government — for which they had 
sacrificed home, friends, and property, and 
had embraced exile, contempt, and penury — 
threw them upon the tender mercies of their 
opponents in the treaty of peace. This sur- , 
render of their interests by Lord Shelburne 
called out, in both Houses of the Parliament, 
expressions of sympathetic indignation ; but 
the sympathy never took any material shape. 
Sheridan, in the House of Commons, exe- 
crated the treatment of these unfortunate 
men, '^who, without the least notice taken 
of their civil and religious rights, were 
handed over as subjects to a power that 
would not fail to take vengeance on them for 
their zeal and attachment to the religion and 
government of the ' mother country. ' " In 
the House of Lords, Lord Loughborough 
said, ''that neither in ancient nor modern 
history had there been so shameful a deser- 
tion of men who had sacrificed all to their 
duty and to their reliance upon British faith." 

To such charges Lord Shelburne could only 
reply by a feeble appeal to the mercy of his 
13 



1 94 USSA TS IN AMEBIC AN HIS TOB Y. 

condemners : '^ I have but one answer to give 
the House ; it is the answer I give my own 
bleeding heart. A part must be wounded 
that the whole of the empire may not 
perish. If better terms could be had^ think 
you, my lords, that I would not have em- 
braced them ? I had but the alternative 
either to accept the terms proposed or con- 
tinue the war. " ^ 

Lord Shelburne's statement was correct. 
He had entered upon the negotiations for 
peace full of sympathy for the loyalists and 
resolved to make their cause the cause of 
England ; but when, to his attempts to ob- 
tain for them the restoration of their property 
and the abolition of penal laws, was opposed 
a steady non possumus, his enthusiasm for 
his persecuted fellow-countrymen waned ; 
and when at last it was plainly suggested to 
him that a year's prolongation of the war 
would cost more than all the loyalists' prop- 
erty put together, he consented to accept 
the assurance, the futility and emptiness of 
which was evident upon the face of it, that 
^^ Congress shall earnestly recommend" to 
the several states to repeal the laws of at- 
tainder and confiscation which had been 
passed against the Tories and their property. 
One of the American negotiators brusquely 



THE LOYALISTS. 195 

remarked that it was better and more proper 
that the loyalists should be compensated by 
their friends than by their enemies. This 
desertion of their interests almost broke the 
hearts of some of the best and most public- 
spirited of the loyalists, who had given up 
everything for the cause of their country, 
and now saw themselves consigned to poverty 
in their old age, or at the best to supplicat- 
ing aid of the British government and being 
exposed to all '^ the insolence of office and the 
scorns that patient merit of the unworthy 
takes. "^ 

It took a long time to adjust the claims 
and to distribute the bounty which was doled 
out by unwilling officials. It was 1783 when 
the war closed, but not until 1790 was the 
indemnity paid out to the claimants; and 
then England forced her unfortunate pen- 
sioners, made paupers by their trust in her, 
to accept about £3,300,000 for losses reck- 
oned at over £8, 000, 000. It is estimated that 
over a thousand claimants had in the mean 
time perished in want and penury. Those 
were on the whole more fortunate, as events 
proved, who had braved it out in America 
than were those who had trusted to the 
gratitude of England. ^^ 

What was the loss of America was the 



196 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTOBY. 

gain to her nearest neighbors, the coast pro- 
vinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. 
As early as 17Y5 the exodus from Boston to 
Halifax had begun ; and when Howe evacu- 
ated the city, a large number of loyalists 
took refuge with the fleet and army, 
and leaving all behind came to Halifax 
to seek their fortunes under another sky. 
From that time on, throughout the war, 
Halifax was the haven of refuge for perse- 
cuted loyalists. 2^ At the evacuation of New 
York and Savannah no fewer than 30,000 
persons left the United States for Nova 
Scotia. Halifax was so crowded that houses 
could not be had at any price, and provisions 
were held at famine prices. ^^ From north- 
ern New York and Vermont the loyalists 
crossed over into Upper Canada and laid the 
foundation of that prosperous province under 
the vigorous government of Governor Simcoe, 
who during the war had commanded a 
regiment of loyalist rangers which had 
done efficient service. ^^ With many a suffer- 
ing, many a privation, these exiles for con- 
science' sake toiled to make homes for them- 
selves in the wilderness, and it is to them 
that the development of those provinces is 
due. Familiar New England names meet 
one at every turn in these provinces, 



THE LOYALISTS. 197 

especially in Nova Scotia. Dr. Inglis of 
Trinity Church, New York, was the first 
bishop, and Judge Sewall of Massachusetts, 
the first chief justice there. The harshness 
of the laws and the greed of the new common- 
wealths thus drove into exile men who could 
be ill spared, and whose absence showed itself 
in the lack of balance and of political steadi- 
ness that characterized the early history of 
the Eepublic. This, moreover, perpetuated a 
traditional dislike, grudge, and suspicion 
between the people of the United States and 
their nearest neighbors, men of the same 
blood and the same speech ; while the new- 
founded colonies, composed almost exclu- 
sively of conservatives, were naturally slow, 
if sure, in their developement. 

This dislike and suspicion is now fortunate- 
ly diminishing with the lapse of years, but 
it was a great pity it ever was created. The 
men who were willing to give up home, 
friends, and property for an idea, are not 
men to be despised or laughed at, as was the 
fashion of the generation which roared with 
delight over the coarse buffooneries of Trum- 
bull's McFingal. They are rather men for us to" 
claim with pride, and to honor as Americans, 
Americans who were true to their convictions 
of duty, confessors for their political faith. 



198 ESSAYS m AMEBIC AN HISTORY. 

Sabine relates the following conversation : 
«' ^ Why did you come here, when you and 
your associates were almost certain to endure 
the sufferings and absolute want of shelter 
and food which you have now narrated ? ' 
asked an American gentleman of one of the 
first settlers of St. John, New Brunswick, a 
man whose life .... was without a stain. 
' Why did we come here ? ' replied he, with 
emotion that brought tears; — ^for our loy- 
alty; think you that our principles were not 
as dear to us as were yours to you ? ' " 



THE LOYALISTS. 199 



NOTES. 

' Franklin's Memoirs (London, 1818, p. 201), (Sparks, p. 
176). *' In 1754, war with France being again appre- 
hended, a congress of commissioners from the different 
colonies was by an order of the lords of trade to be as- 
sembled in Albany ; there to confer with the chiefs of 
the six nations, concerning the means of defending both 
their country and ours. 

We met the other commissioners at Albany about the 
middle of June. In our way thither I projected and 
drew up a plan for the union of all the colonies under 
one government, so far as might be necessary for de- 
fence, and other important general purposes. As we 
passed through New York, I had there shown my project 
to Mr. James Alexander and Mr. Kennedy, two gentle- 
men of great knowledge in public affairs j and being 
fortified by their approbation, I ventured to lay it before 
the congress. It then appeared that several of the com- 
missioners had formed plans of the same kind. A pre- 
vious question was first taken, whether a union should 
be established, which passed in the affirmative, unani- 
mously. A committee was then appointed, one member 
from each colony, to consider the several plans and re- 
port. Mine happened to be preferred, and with a few 
amendments was accordingly reported. By this plan the 
general government was to be administered by a Presi- 
dent General appointed and supported by the Crown ; 
and a grand Council to be chosen by the representatives 
of the people of the several colonies met in their respec- 



200 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN BISTORT. 

tive assemblies. The debates upon it in congress went 
on daily hand in hand with the Indian business. Many- 
objections and diflBiculties were started, but at length they 
were all overcome, and the plan was unanimously agreed 
to, and copies ordered to be transmitted to the board of 
trade and to the assemblies of the several provinces. Its 
fate was singular : the assemblies did not adopt it, as 
they aU thought there was too much prerogative in it ; 
and in England it was judged to have too much of the 
democratic. The different and contrary reasons of dis- 
like to my plan make me suspect that it was really the 
true medium ; and I am still of opinion it would have 
been happy for both sides if it had been adopted. The 
colonies so united would have been sufficiently strong to 
have defended themselves : there would then have been 
no need of troops from England ; of course the subsequent 
pretext for taxing America, and the bloody contest it 
occasioned, would have been avoided." 

The plan proposed may be found in Fi-anklin's Works 
(Sparks, i. 36), (London, 1833, v. 299) ; N. Y. Col Doc, vi. 
889. The proceedings of the Congress in N. Y. Col. Doc. , 
vi. 853, other accounts of the Congress by members ; 
Hutchinson, Hist. Mass. Bay, iii. 19-25 ; WilHam Smith, 
History of New York, ii. 180 ; Stephen Hopkins, A true 
representation of the plan formed at Albany {in 1754) for 
uniting all the British northern Colonies, in order to 
their common safety and defence (R. I. Historical 
Tracts, No. 9). For an excellent brief statement of the 
attempts at consoUdation and plans suggested for that 
purpose, see Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of 
the U. S., V. 611. 

2 The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in 
Foreign Parts was founded in 1701 . A previous organiza- 
tion bearing a similar name had been founded during the 
period of the Commonwealth, especially for work among 
the aborigines in New England, and it is to this associa- 



THE LOYALISTS. 201 

tion that we owe that most interesting of missionary 
relics, Eliot's Indian Bible. Great interest was taken in 
this by the celebrated Robert Boyle, and scholarships were 
endowed by Sir Leoline Jenkyns in Jesus College, Oxford, 
one condition of which was that the beneficiary should 
devote his life after taking his degree to missionary work 
in the plantations. The reports of Commissary Bray, 
who had been sent out to Maryland, of the spiritual des- 
titution of the American colonies and of the difficulties 
under which the ministers of the Church of England 
labored, led to the organization and incorporation of the 
Society, which has been from that day to this an active 
agency in the spread of religion and knowledge in the 
colonies of Great Britain. Humphreys, Historical Ac- 
count of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. 
Hawkins, Missions of the Church of England. 

3 For a full account of this most interesting revolution, 
see E. Edwards Beardsley, D. D., The Histoi-y of the 
Church in Connecticut. See also Life and Correspond- 
ence of Samuel Johnson, D. D., and Yale College and the 
Church {History of the American Episcopal Church, vol. 
i. 561). Humphreys, Historical Account, 339. 

^ Franklin's Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 218, 220. An amusing 
instance of the prevaihng ignorance in regard to Amer- 
ican affairs even among its friends is given by Benjamin 
Vaughan in a note in Frankhn's Memoirs, vol. v. p. 320. 
"To guard against the incursions of the Indians a plan 
was sent over to America (and, as I think, by authority) 
suggesting the expediency of clearing away the woods 
and bushes from a tract of land, a mile in breadth, and 
extending along the back of the colonies." It is said 
that this plan was the contribution of Dean Tucker 
towards the solution of the Indian problem of the day. 

^ Jones, Hist. New York, ii. 291, 559. Political Maga- 
zine, Apr., 1780. Hutchinson, History Mass. Bay, iii. SO- 
BS, 166 note, 254, 293. Hutchinson's Diary, i. 65. For 



202 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

reasons assigned by Hutchinson for the patriotism of 
John Adams, Hist. iii. 297. 

^ North American Review, lix. p. 270 (Sabine). '* It 
may be asked, why, when the oppressions of the mother 
country were so very flagrant and apparent, there was 
not greater unanimity than appears to have existed ; and 
why a party, so large in numbers, which in so many 
colonies included persons so respectable, and hitherto so 
universally esteemed, was seemingly, or in fact, averse 
to breaking away from British dominion. These ques- 
tions have been put to loyalists themselves. They have 
answered, that, upon the original formation of parties, 
they were generally regarded as the common organiza- 
tions of the ins and outs ; the one striving to retain, and 
the other to gain, patronage and place ; and that the 
mass in taking sides with or against the royal governors, 
were stimulated by the hopes which politicians have 
always been able to excite in their followers." 

'' Moore's Diary of the American Revolution, i. 37-52, 
138. Massachutensis, Letters I., III., IV. Hutchinson, 
History of Mass. Bay, iii. passim. A W. Farmer, The 
Congress Canvassed, p. 8. The name Tory was given 
first in 1763, as a title of reproach to officers of the 
crown and such as were for keeping up their authority. 
Hist. Mass. Bay, iii. 103. 

8 Adams's Works, ii. 362. 

® For the manner in which the temperate remonstrance 
of the loyal colony of New York was treated, see Parlia- 
mentary Register, vol. i. 467-478. 

^'^ A specimen from a comparatively moderate article 
upon the loyaUsts may serve to substantiate the state- 
ment of the text (No. Am. Rev., Ixv. p. 142): *'The 
meanest, most dastardly, and most cruel scenes and deeds 
of the Eevolution were enacted as the proper fruits of a 
civil war by a large majority of the Tories, who remained 
at home, and who, as regulars, as volunteers, in gangs, 



TUE LOYALISTS. 203 

or as individual outlaws, were the instigators of nearly 
every foul and atrocious act in the whole strife. It is 
from these, the majority of the whole number, that the 
name of Tory has received its hateful associations, which 
will cling to it to the end of time. A class that includes 
an Arnold and a Butler can never hope for complete re- 
demption, at least so long as Judas remains in ' his own 
place.'" 

One is glad to appeal from this intemperate and exag- 
gerated language to the essay upon the loyalists by Dr. 
George E. Ellis, in Winsor's Narrative and Critical His- 
tory, vol. vii. It would be as undesirable as it is unneces- 
sary to supply, as could readily be done, instances of gross 
cruelty and barbarity inflicted by the Whigs upon the 
unfortunate loyalists "who remained at home." The 
Correspondence of Lord Cornwallis gives a most painful 
picture of the condition of things in the South (Corr., i. 
73), and the letters of Count Fersen, who cannot be sus- 
pected of prejudice, reveal the hardly less savage condi- 
tion of affairs in the North. He says, for example, of 
Rhode Island {Letters, i. 40, 41) : 

" C'est un pays qui sera fort heureux s'il jouit d'une 
paix longue, et si les deux partis qui le divisent a present 
ne lui font subir le sort de la Pologne et de tant d'autres 
republiques. Ces deux partes sont appeles les Whigs et 
les Torys. Le premier est entierement pour la liberte et 
rindependance ; il est compose de gens de la plus basse 
extraction qui ne possedent point de biens ; la plupart 
des habitants de la compagne en sont. Les Torys sont 
pour les Anglais, ou, pour mieux dire, pour la paix, sans 
trop se soucier d'etre libres ou dependants ; ce sont les 
gens d'une classe plus distinguee, les seuls qui eussent des 
biens dans le pays. Lorsque les Whigs sont les plus forts, 
ils pillent les autres tant qu'ils peuvent." 

^^Simcoe, Lt.-Col. J. G., A History of the Operations 
of a Partisan Corps called the Queen's Rangers, com- 



204 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

manded by Lt.-Col. J. G. Simcoe, during the war of the 
American Revolution. New York : Bartlett and Welford, 
1884, 8vo, pp. 328. 

'5 The Americans made several attempts to make use 
of the Indians : Montgomery used them in his Canadian 
expedition ; they were in the New England army which 
laid siege to Boston ; in April, 1776, Washington wrote to 
Congress urging their employment in the army, and 
reported on July 13th that, without special authority, he 
had directed General Schuyler to engage the Six Nations 
on the best terms he and his colleagues could procure ; 
and again, submitting the propriety of engaging the 
Eastern Indians. John Adams thought "we need not 
be so delicate as to refuse the assistance of Indians, 
provided we cannot keep them neutral." A treaty was 
exchanged with the Eastern Indians on July 17, 1776, 
whereby they agreed to furnish six hundred Indians for 
a regiment which was to be officered by the whites. As 
a result of this, the Massachusetts Council subsequently 
reported that seven Penobscot Indians, all that could be 
procured, were enlisted in October for one year ; and in 
November Major Shaw reported with a few Indians who 
had enlisted in the Continental service. Winsor, Narr. 
and Crit. Hist., vol. vi. 656, 657. The following brief 
entry in a diary wiU show that even among the patriot 
forces savage customs sometimes found place : " On 
Monday the 30th sent out a party for some dead Indians. 
Toward morning found them, and skinned two of them 
from their hips down for boot legs : one pair for the 
major, the other for myself." Proceedings N. J. Hist. 
Soc, ii. p. 31. 

^^ North American Review, lix. 264 (Sabine). "The 
opponents of the Eevolution were powerful in all the 
thirteen colonies ; in some of them they were nearly 
if not quite equal in number to its friends the Whigs. 
On the departure of Hutchinson he was addressed by 



TBE LOYALISTS. 205 

upwards of two hundred merchants, lawyers and other 
citizens of Boston, Salem and Marblehead. On arrival 
of Gage, forty-eight from Salem presented their dutiful 
respects ; on his retirement he received the ' Loyal address 
from gentlemen and principal inhabitants of Boston ' to 
the number of ninety-seven, and eighteen country 
gentlemen and official personages who had taken refuge 

in Boston." 

"The division of parties in Connecticut, Rhode Island 
and New Hampshire was much the same as in Massa- 
chusetts. New York was the loyahsts' stronghold, and 
contained more of them than any colony in America. 
While proof to sustain this assertion can be adduced to 
almost any extent, we shall cite but a single though 
conclusive fact ; namely, that soon after the close of the 
war the Assembly of that State passed a bill prohibiting 
adherents of the crown from holding office, which was 
objected to and returned by the Council of Revision, 
who, among other reasons for their course, stated, that 
if it were suffered to become a law, there would be 
difficulty, and in some places an impossibility, of finding 
men of different political sympathies, even to conduct 
the elections. In some of the southern colonies, the 
loyalists were almost as numerous as in New York. In 
the Carolinas it may be hard to determine which party 
had the majority ; and it will be found that there were 
occasions when the royal generals obtained twelve or 
fifteen hundred recruits among the inhabitants, merely 
by issuing a proclamation or call upon them to stand 
by their allegiance to "the best of sovereigns. . . . Few 
of the Carolinians would enlist under the American 
banner ; but after the capitulation (of Charlestown) they 
flocked to the royal standard by hundreds." See also 
Sabine's Loyalists, Introductory Sketch ; Ryerson, Loyal- 
ists of America, ii. 57, 124. For remarks on the war, as 
a civil war, see Ramsay, Hist. U. S., ii. 467-9. 



206 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTOBY. 

^4 Sabine, i. 65. 

'5AW. Farmer, The Congress Canvassed, pp. 17-19, 
exhibits the manner in which delegates to Congress 
were chosen in New York. " The New York City com- 
mittee (a self-appointed body) appUed to the supervisors 
in the several counties to call the people together and to 
choose committees, which committees were to meet in 
one grand committee ; and this grand committee of 
committees were to choose the delegates for the county 
or to declare their approbation of the New York delegates, 
and if any county did not meet and choose their com- 
mittee it was to be taken for granted that they acquiesced 
in the New York choice." Again as to delegates chosen 
by the Assemblies : ' ' The Assembly has no legal right 
to act by itself and claim to represent the people in so 
doing. The people are not bound by any act of their 
representatives till it hath received the approbation of 
the other branches of the legislature. Delegates so 
appointed are, at best, but delegates of delegates, but 
representatives of representatives. When therefore the 
delegates at Philadelphia, in the preamble to their Bill 
of Rights, and in their letter to his Excellency General 
Gage, stiled their body * a full and free representation 
of . . . all the Colonies from Nova Scotia to Georgia,' 
they were guilty of a piece of impudence which was 
never equalled since the world began, and never will be 
exceeded while it shall continue." Again : '* No pro- 
vincial legislature (even if complete) can give them such 
powers as were lately exercised at Philadelphia. The 
legislative authority of the province cannot extend 
further than the province extends. None of its acts 
are binding one inch beyond its limits. How then can 
it give authority to a few persons, to make rules 
and laws for the whole continent ? . . . . Before such a 
mode of legislation can take place, the constitution of our 



TEE LOYALISTS. 207 

colonies must be subverted and their present independ- 
ency on one another must he anniliilated." 

The logic of the loyahst writers is unanswerable, and 
their legal reasoning is usually correct and precise ; the 
fallacy of their position was that they were in face of a 
revolution. Elements had been introduced into the 
struggle which, like the presence of an infinite quantity 
in an equation, vitiated the reasoning, however correct 
the process may have been. The author argues, for 
example : " To talk of subjection to the King of Great 
Britain, while we disclaim submission to the Parliament 
of Great Britain, is idle and ridiculous. It is a distinc- 
tion made by the American Republicans to serve their 
own rebellious purposes, a gilding with which they have 
enclosed the pill of sedition, to entice the unwary colo- 
nists to swallow it the more readily down. The King of 
Great Britain was placed on the throne by virtue of an 
Act of Parliament : And he is king of America, by virtue 
of being king of Great Britain. He is therefore king of 
America by Act of Parliament. And if we disclaim that 
authority which made him our king, we, in fact, reject 
him from being our king, for we disclaim that authority 
by which he is king at all." It may be noticed that the 
fundamental Whig doctrine of the supremacy of Parlia- 
ment, which is here so strongly urged, was never under- 
stood or appreciated by those who called themselves 
Whigs in America. 

'^ Clinton-Cormvallis Correspondence, i. pp. 263, 265 

'■' Clinton-Cormvallis Correspondence, ii. pp. 308, 309. 

^^ Jones, Thomas, History of New York, i. 362-3, 172- 
176. 

^^ Christian Examiner, viii. pp. 127, 128 (Dabney). 
Curwen, Journal, 475, 479. 

^^ Sabine, North American Review, lix. pp. 287, 288. 
Loyalists, i. 71-81. Ryerson, Loyalists of America, ii, 
130, 136. 



208 ESSAYS IN AMEBIC AN BISTORT. 

21 No. Am. Rev., lix. p. 289. 

2^ The Journal and Letters of the late Samuel Curiven, 
New York and Boston, 1842, p. 147. 

2^ Parliamentary History, vol. xxiii. 411, 412, 430, 481. 
The following extracts may be added to those given in 
the text ; Mr. Burke said : ' ' Better to have left the whole 
to future negotiation, and to have been totally silent upon 
the subject in the treaty, than to have consented to have 
set our hands to a gross libel on the national character, 
and in our flagitious article plunged the dagger into the 
hearts of the loyalists, and manifested our own impo- 
tency, ingratitude and disgrace " (p. 468). In the same 
debate Mr. Lee said: "Europe, Asia, Africa and Amer- 
ica beheld the dismembership and diminution of the 
British Empire. But this, alarming and calamitous as it 
was, was nothing when put in competition with another 
of the crimes of the present peace, the cession of men 
into the hands of their enemies, and delivering over to 
confiscation, tyranny, resentment and oppression the un- 
happy men who trusted to our fair promises and deceit- 
ful words. This was the great ground of his objection : 
and he called it a disgraceful, wicked and treacherous 
peace ; inadequate to its object, and such as no man 
could vote to be honorable without delivering his char- 
acter over to damnation for ever " (p. 492). 

2** Ryerson, ii. 64. Curwen's Journal, 367. Jones, 
History of N. Y.,i\. The bitterness of the mortification, 
and resentment at the treatment they had received from 
the hands of their friends, is well exhibited in Judge 
Jones's remarkable work, which, however trustworthy or 
the reverse it may be in other respects, may be followed 
impUcitly as an exhibition of loyalist feeling towards the 
mother country. 

25 Jones, ii. 645-654. Wilmot, Historical View of the 
Commission for Enquiry into the Losses, etc., London, 
1815. Ryerson, ii. 159-182. Diary and Letters of 



THE LOYALISTS. 209 

Thomas Hutchinson, ii. 435-437. Sabine, i. 86-90. In 
March, 1784, the number of persons who had preferred 
their petitions was 2,063, and the alleged losses £7,046,278, 
besides outstanding debts in America amounting to 
£2,354,135. "In 1788 Mr. Pitt submitted a plan for 
classifying the claimants, and of classifying and appor- 
tioning the nature and amount of consolation to be 
allotted to each ; and to those whose losses had been 
caused principally by the deprivation of official or pro- 
fessional incomes, he proposed a system of pensions. 
By the 5th of April, this year (1790), the Commissioners 
in England had heard and determined 1,680 claims, and 
had liquidated the same at the sum of £1,887,548. It 
appeared, finally, that the number of applicants from 
England, and from the Canadian provinces, attained to 
the aggregate of 5,072, of which 954 either withdrew their 
appKcations or failed to press them, and the sum of the 
losses is stated to have been £8,026,045. Another return 
is made out by Mr. J. E. Wilmot, one of the Commis- 
sioners, wherein the amount of the claim is given as 
£10,358,413, and the amount of the claims allowed at 
£3,033,091. The subject was again raised in Parliament 
in 1821, but though there was much sympathy expressed 
for the sufferings of those who had trusted to their 
country to recompense their fidelity, the sympathy ex- 
hausted itself in words." See also Lecky, England in the 
Eighteenth Century, iv. 268. Curwen, 367, 368. 

26 Ryerson, ii. 127. No. Am. Rev., lix. 279. Hawkins, 
Missions of the Church of England, 249. The Frontier 
Missionary, or Life of the Rev. Jacob Bailey, by W. S. 
Bartlett, New York, 1853 (Collections of the Protestant 
Episcopal Historical Society, vol. ii.). This work gives a 
pathetic account of the hardships and privations under- 
gone by the exiles in Nova Scotia, as well as a graphic 
picture of the methods used by the town committees in 



210 ESSAYS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 

New England with those who adhered to the cause of 
the king. 

2'' Hawkins, Missions, 371-3. Ryerson, ii. 206. Mass. 
Hist. Soc. Proceedings, Oct. , 1886, p. 95. For the treat- 
ment of the loyalists in the United States after the treaty 
of peace, see especially Jones, Hist. New York, vol. ii. 
Roberts, Hist, of New York, ii. 449 ff. Lecky {Hist. Eng- 
land in the Eighteenth Century, iv. 267) remarks rather 
sharply : ' ' The loyalists to a great extent sprung from and 
represented the old gentry of the country. The pros- 
pect of seizing their property had been one great motive 
which induced many to enter the war. The owners of 
the confiscated property now grasped the helm. New 
men exercised the social influence of the old families, 
and they naturally dreaded the restoration of those whom 
they had displaced." 

^^ Vide supra, Note 11. 

^^ No. Am. Rev., lix. 262 (Sabine). Lecky's tribute to 
the loyalists may be added : ' ' There were brave and 
honest men in America who were proud of the great and 
free empire to which they belonged, who had no desire 
to shrink from the burden of maintaining it, who re- 
membered with gratitude the English blood that had 
been shed around Quebec and Montreal, and who, with 
nothing to hope for from the crown, were prepared to 
face the most brutal mob violence and the invectives of 
a scurrilous press, to risk their fortunes, their reputations, 
and sometimes even their lives, in order to avert civil 
war and ultimate separation. Most of them ended 
their days in poverty and exile, and as the supporters of 
a beaten cause history has paid but a scanty tribute to 
their memory, but they comprised some of the best and 
ablest men America has ever produced, and they were 
contending for an ideal which was at least as worthy 
as that for which Washington fought. The maintenance 
of one free, industrial and pacific empire, comprising 



THE L O TALIS TS. 211 

the whole EngHsh race, may have been a dream, but it 
was at least a noble one." History of England in the 
Eighteenth Century, iii. 418. For historical notices of 
the loyalists in Canada, the following are also useful : 
Settlement of Upper Canada (1872), by Wilham Canniff ; 
Toronto of Old (1873), by Dr. H. Scadding ; Centennial of 
the Settlement of Upper Canada by the United Empire 
Loyalists, 1784-1884 ; TJie Celebrations at Adolphustown, 
Toronto, and Niagara, Toronto, 1885. 



THE END. 



